RSP, FB still hurdles in Cong path

NEW DELHI, APRIL 21: Pressure from CPIM heavyweights Harkishan Singh Surjeet and Jyoti Basu have not worked. The pleadings of Congress ...

NEW DELHI, APRIL 21: Pressure from CPIM heavyweights Harkishan Singh Surjeet and Jyoti Basu have not worked. The pleadings of Congress leaders Sharad Pawar and P J Kurien have not moved them either.

The two minor left parties, the RSP and the Forward Bloc continue to dig in their heels and stymie Congress attempts to tot up the numbers, by refusing to extend their support, even from the outside, to a Congress-led government.

The two parties which together command seven seats in the Lok Sabha could make or break the Congress8217; chances, at a time when the vote of every MP counts.

Neither threats nor inducements appear to have worked. In the early days, when the RSP and the Forward Bloc made their opposition to supporting the Congress known, the CPIM and CPI leaders were indulgent: 8220;Give them a few days and they will fall in line8221;, said one CPIM insider. 8220;Where can they go? They have to come back to us8221;, said another.

Meetings with individual RSP and Forward Bloc leaders nor their collectivebombardment by the CPIM and CPI leaders, have failed to yield results.

8220;We are not going to have anything to do with the Congress8221;, said a Forward Bloc leader.

The reasons for the RSP and Forward Bloc branding the Congress as pariah are not hard to find. 8220;For decades we have fought the Congress and its ruling class policies. We will not change our stand to the Congress overnight8221;, said RSP general secretary and Rajya Sabha member Abani Roy.

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Holding on to their principle of having no truck with bourgeois8217; parties, the last party Congress of the RSP held in 1995, had adopted the stand of characterising both the Congress and the BJP as anti-poor and anti-working class parties. The strategy was to maintain equidistance8217; from both these parties.

8220;There8217;s not much difference between the BJP and the Congress. While the BJP openly plays the communal card, the Congress compromises with communal elements8221;, he said.

8220;Today the Congress wants to form a government, but that does not change the classcharacter of the party. The RSP is opposed to the Congress on principle, we cannot do an about-turn8221;, Roy said.

And not that the BJP was ignoring the RSP or Forward Bloc either. BJP troubleshooter P R Kumaramangalam also made a number of visits to both Roy and Forward Bloc General Secretary Debabrata Biswas, to tell them how much the BJP appreciated their principled stand against the Congress.

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The refusal of the RSP and the Forward Bloc to bow to pressure will no doubt come as a blow to both Surjeet and Basu. For Surjeet, the master strategist in every political crisis, the recalcitrance of the two minor members of his left flock to fall in line, when he has other political big wheels of every shade and hue kowtowing to him, must be really painful.