Naidu may cause a few heartaches in Cong, UF

Falling in line with the Left view, Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh said "We have been supporting the CPI(M) all along. So we will do whatever Surjeet tells us to do."

The TDP is meeting tomorrow in Hyderabad to chalk out its strategy, while the politburo of the CPI(M) begins talks in New Delhi in the morning. Thecore committe of the UF is also getting together in the capital on March 5 to finalise its moves.

"Our effort will be to see that the UF stands together and takes a joint decision," a senior Left leader said. With 48 seats, the Left Front has emerged as the largest group within the UF.

Significantly, the dilemma within the Left and the TDP about supporting the Congress was also becoming evident. If they were seen to be supporting the Congress at the Centre, sources said, "they would be decimated" in states like West Bengal, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh respectively, where the Congress was the main opposition party. The Left has, for the time being, resolved this problem by saying that while they are agreed to back a "secular" alliance with the Congress from outside, they will take "interventionist positions" if Congress policy did not agree with their own. For the TDP, supporting a Congress-led government is fraught with problems given the fact that the two are adversaries in Andhra Pradesh. There have beensuggestions that it could support such a government from outside but the President may not agree to such an arrangement any more.

Left leaders also continued to maintain that if they emerged as the single largest coalition, they should be invited to form government. But as their strategy coalesces, it seems they will not openly denigrate a presidential invitation to the BJP as this would seem to be "defying the BJP’s mandate."

In such an event, Left sources said, they would do everything possible on the first available occasion to vote the BJP out on the floor of the House. Surjeet was vocal about the fact that the "greater danger is the BJP," and that it had to be kept away from forming government.