Prakash Carrot

It8217;s a departure from the routine threat-making that has come to characterise the Left8217;s relationship with the government it supports. In an interview, CPM General Secretary Prakash Karat has categorically ruled out any plans to pull the plug on the Manmohan Singh government. Karat has also distanced the CPM from the Third Front that is being proclaimed by the SP,TDP, AIADMK and AGP from the poll dais in Uttar Pradesh. The common policy platform that is required for such a Front, says Karat, is yet to be. In other words, he lobs the idea of the Front back into the fuzzy and timeless realm it has inhabited since its last disastrous outing at the political centre in the late nineties. Taken together, these statements on the UPA government and the Third Front, are striking. Read against the backdrop of the political battle in UP, they show a refreshing fleetfootedness and nimble strategising.

Karat is tracking the exit polls in UP. Indications are, the Left8217;s favoured ally and centrepiece of any future Third Front, the Samajwadi Party, may not return to power. It could be that BSP and Congress numbers come close to adding up. In these circumstances, the imminent formation of the Third Front in Uttar Pradesh, from where it was assumed it could then spread to conquer the Centre, is looking increasingly unlikely. By inching closer to the UPA and stepping back from the Third Front, the CPM general secretary is acknowledging this reality and showing us that his party can think on its feet. The consequences for the nation look generally happy: hopefully it means the Left will be less obstreperous vis-a-vis the government it supports at the Centre. Hopefully, too, the assorted chieftains who want to make up another Third Front will shelve their plans to unsettle the political Centre yet again.

The Congress, meanwhile, has much to learn and do. In UP, after the polls are over, the party must play a stabilising role. And at the Centre, now that the Left may refrain from its policy of knee-jerk antagonism, it must retrieve the initiative that it has let slip three years after it came to power. Both for the Left and Congress, it8217;s time to stop the grandstanding and get down to serious work before the next moment of reckoning in 2009.