The Left may let the UPA off the hook over the Indo-US deal this time, but its relationship with the ruling coalition is expected to come under further strain in coming days.
Indications that the Left was intent on reducing the manouevering space for the UPA became apparent when CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat on Friday used matrimonial metaphor to characterise UPA-Left ties, before going to attend the party?s politburo meeting. ?The honeymoon may be over, but the marriage can go on,? Karat, whose party forced the logjam by demanding that the 123 agreement not be operationalised, remarked.
Karat?s comments are being interpreted as a signal that the Left will not rock the UPA boat over the nuke deal, but then Left support could become conditional. This view was further buttressed when CPI general secretary AB Bardhan, whose party?s central secretariat also met on Friday, contended that the kind of support given by the Left parties to the government needed to be redefined. He said that the Left should sit together and decide on the ambit of support to the government.
Trying to shrug off perception of a difference of views with the CPI(M), Bardhan said his contention that the marriage was over with UPA, was not contrary to what Karat stated on Friday.
?What both of us had said is in the same meaning. The marriage is going on. But the love between the couple has lost,? he quipped in a lighter vein. ?We don?t understand why the government is in a hurry. The deal should not be operationalised. In Parliament also we will spell this out,? Bardhan told reporters after the central secretariat meeting.
Bardhan too, however, asserted that the Left would not withdraw the support to the UPA government on the ?particular issue? of nuclear deal, while suggesting that their list of grievances with the UPA was a long one.
Meanwhile, keeping the channels of communication open with the CPI(M), Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had a dinner meeting with West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.
Voices of reconciliation also came from Kolkata with the CPI(M) patriarch Jyoti Basu ruling out withdrawal of support from the government.