Mulayam meets Karat, says Left natural ally

The meeting between SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and party General Secretary Amar Singh and CPI(M) leaders Prakash Karat and Sitaram Yechury, came close on the heels of sharp differences between the two sides on the women’s reservation bill.

After the meeting, Singh projected that all was well in their ties with the Left and there was unanimity of views on “99 per cent of the issues”.

Left sources, however, insisted that the meeting saw the SP leaders making a lot of explaining in view of its growing closeness with Congress.

They were asked searching questions about the relevance of the UNPA and the SP’s future plans when general elections were only a year away.

The Left sought to know whether SP planned to go with Congress only in Uttar Pradesh or all over the country as part of the UPA.

After the meeting, Amar Singh said there was lot of confusion on the SP-Left ties in the wake of differences over the women’s bill and it was decided that in future whatever differences are there would be sorted out through dialogue and discussions and not on the floor of Parliament.

The SP leaders also showed willingness to discuss the women quota bill, saying the Parliamentary Standing Committee should be allowed to discuss and come to some conclusions.

The SP leaders have already held discussions with CPI General Secretary A B Bardhan. The meeting between the SP and the Left came after the Karnataka electoral outcome which saw the BJP making its first southern foray defeating the Congress and raising worries among its allies.

Noting that there have been no differences between the SP and the Left on most of the issues, Singh pointed out that they had organised a conference on price rise issue and had gone to jail together.

“The differences between the parties on the issue is now being hyped by the media and projected as a new development,” he said after the meeting.