Left says SP,RJD walkout unfortunate,blames Cong

With the 13-party grouping that they had stitched together faltering after the surprise turnaround by Mulayam Singh Yadav and Lalu Prasad,the Left on Tuesday....

With the 13-party grouping that they had stitched together faltering after the surprise turnaround by Mulayam Singh Yadav and Lalu Prasad,the Left on Tuesday felt that the Yadav duos cleverly orchestrated walkout that helped the government defeat the cut motions was extremely unfortunate.

The disappointment of the Left was apparent and so was their helplessness. The Left parties with their strength depleted in the 15th Lok Sabha would not want to hit hard at Mulayam and Lalu for going back on their promise as the option of cooperation with them in the future is always open. In fact,the SP and RJD had enforced hartal in UP and Bihar as per the joint strike call given by the 13 parties.

We have worked with them in the past,we will work with them in the future as well, CPM Politburo member Sitaram Yechury told The Indian Express. Asked about the turnaround by the Yadav brigade,he said it was a fact that they were part of the decision to move cut motions against the government and it was up to them now to explain what they did.

Yechury sought to make light of the shift in stand of the RJD and SP. Referring to the walkout,he said,It is better than they standing in the well of the House and disrupting the proceedings. The Demands for Grants were not passed in the din and we could at least register our protest, he said. His Left colleague Gurudas Dasgupta,however,said the walkout was extremely unfortunate.

While the Left was soft on Mulayam and Lalu owing to the political compulsions,it attacked the Congress for managing the numbers. Referring to the BSPs surprise decision to support the government,Yechury said the ruling party had shown its expertise in finding out who is vulnerable,when and where.

They have shown their expertise once again. They had shown it during the trust vote in 2008. We had experienced that when the Opposition unity was building up against the Indo-US nuclear deal, he said. That time also,the SP had ditched the Left to join hands with the UPA and helped it win the trust vote.

Noting that the UPA II was forced to start counting its numbers in the first year itself,he said the idea behind moving a cut motion was not aimed at destabilising the government but to force it to withdraw the hikes in duties on petrol and diesel and the raise in fertilizer prices.