Surjeet mediates between Congress and United Front

Parleys between United Front leaders and the Congress began on Tuesday, in an attempt to resolve the crisis arising out of the party's withdrawal of support to the coalition on Sunday.

The Front's standing committee, which met at Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda's home, decided to keep its channels open with its former ally.

UF spokesman S Jaipal Reddy said senior Front leaders were talking to senior Congress leaders in an informal way, and added that it would be a continuous process. But Reddy refused to divulge the nature of the talks and the leaders involved in these discussions.

Front sources, however, said that Communist Party of India-Marxist general secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet was playing a major role in such talks. Surjeet, the sources said, had discussions with Congress Working Committee member K Karunakaran while former prime minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh, who is in the Apollo hospital, spoke to Congress president Sitaram Kesri late on Monday night.

Five chief ministers -- Nara Chandrababu Naidu (Andhra Pradesh), Prafulla Mahanta (Assam), Laloo Prasad Yadav (Bihar), Farooq Abdullah (Jammu and Kashmir) and M Karunanidhi (Tamil Nadu) -- along with Communist Party of India general secretary A B Bardhan, Tamil Maanila Congress leader G K Moopanar, Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav, Surjeet and Reddy took part in the standing committee meeting which was presided over by the prime minister.

The meeting, according to Reddy, was satisfied with the developing situation. The UF spokesman refused to elaborate about the reasons for the "satisfaction," only reiterating that the Front's unity was ''unbreachable''.

According to the UF sources, the demand for talks with the Congress gained momentum after the Front's steering committee on Monday firmly displayed their unity and made it clear that there was no scope for a change in the coalition's leadership.

Asked whether there was any demand from the Congress to change the Front's leadership, the sources shot back: ''Can we ask the Congress to change Mr Sitaram Kesri? We never chose P V Narasimha Rao nor did they make H D Deve Gowda the leader of the United Front."

Sources said various constituents of the Front were of the view that there should not be any fragmentation in the country's third political alternative which had heralded a new era of a coalition government.

Most of the leaders, the Front sources said, advocated that they should close ranks in a more cohesive manner to face the trial of strength in the Lok Sabha on Friday, April 11.

The Front leaders are apparently hopeful that the Congress may revise its decision in view of the unity displayed by the UF's constituents without whose help the Congress cannot hope to form a government.

The Left parties are hopeful that parleys between the UF and the Congress could resolve the political impasse.

Much of the Left's optimism stems from a conviction that the Congress would not want to be seen as voting with the Bharatiya Janata Party on April 11.

''This is especially so because one of the main reasons cited by the Congress for withdrawal of support to the United Front government is its poor commitment to secularism,'' CPI secretary Atul Kumar Anjaan said.

Similar sentiments were expressed by CPI-M Politburo member Prakash Karat who said ''the Congress will have to explain how pulling down this government will help its professed aim of fighting secularism.''

Both the major Left groups vehemently rejected any chance of their supporting a Congress-led government or indeed any possible coalition government with a Congress element in it.

There are greater issues involved than the simplistic proposition made by Kesri that the Congress should be supported in return for its supporting the United Front for ten months, Karat said.

The ground situation remains the same as when the UF government was sworn in, Karat added. ''Bringing down the government would only help the BJP then as now,'' he added.

The sensible course for the Congress now would be to take up the offer of talks and settle those issues it cited as reasons for withdrawing support.

Such a dialogue would save the country from the trauma of going through another election which need not necessarily be a conclusive one, the Left leaders suggested.

The dialogue would, however, stop short of any new alignment of forces leading to a coalition government with the Congress or any change in the UF leadership.

"There can be no unprincipled compromises of manoeuvres," Surjeet declared. "The Congress has to decide where it stands vis-a-vis the secular government and the alternative of helping the BJP and its allies.''

''There are full ten days ahead and a lot of time,'' UF sources said.