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The reason for the United Front leadership crisis not having been resolved
easily was mainly the anxiety on the part of CPM general secretary Harkishen
Singh Surjeet to get elected a leader who would be as close to him as was
Deve Gowda.
Till late on Friday night, the tussle between Surjeet's protege Mulayam Singh
Yadav, who was being opposed by a big chunk of the UF alliance, and external
affairs minister Inder Kumar Gujral, whom Congress was willing to accept as a
compromise candidate continued. As to who will told until the last lap of
the leadership race, would, however, be clear only on Saturday.
In all this a story of "political manipulation" on the part of Mr Surjeet,
leader of no more than 34 CPM members of the 178 MPs belonging to the
13-party coalition, but who came to play the role of the "Chanakya," has come
to light.
According to sources, Mr Surjeet's advice to harass the Congress party was
mainly responsible for turning Sitaram Kesri against Deve Gowda. The moves he
has been making installing another confidante in office does not bode well
even for the future of government which may be sworn in the next few days, a
Congress general secretary said.
The CPM leader has been trying his best to ensure that the new PM is not only
friendly to him, but is also sympathetic to the Left strategy of isolating
both the Congress and the BJP. From the very beginning he has been opposing
TMC leader G.K. moopanar, and even tried to get the DMK and the TDP oppose
the TMC leader. But when TDP declined to go along with him and the DMK leader
backed Moopanar, he floated Mulayam Singh Yadav's name.
Raising the bogey of BJP domination in the north, the CPM functionary then
began lobbying support for the idea that the new UP leader should be from
Hindi region. His game-plan was not only to pit another hopeful against G.K.
Moopanar whom he did not support mainly because of his Congress leanings but
also a leader who would be anti-Sonia Gandhi. according to an MP close to Mr
Kesri.
It was at this stage that CPM strategist enlisted the services of Amar Singh
and asked him to canvass support for his mentor Mulayam Singh Yadav among
Congressmen.
Surjeet's main argument was that if the BJP has to be given a battle on its
home ground, no leader could be relied more than Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav,
already identified as a friend of the backward castes and a foes of the BJP.
But Mr Yadav's known hostility to the congress rung alarm bells in the AICC.
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