Senior Congress leader A.K. Antony wants to work with the Left after the Lok Sabha polls to check “communal forces” from coming to power at the Centre. He floated the idea of unity of secular forces in the middle of the electoral battle and against the backdrop opinion poll predicting the Congress’ defeat.
“If the CPI(M) was sincere in their pronounced aim to keep the communal forces at bay, they will have to cooperate with a front under the Congress leadership. If they cooperate, we will accept it,” he said on Sunday.
Mr Antony, the defence minister, is heading the AICC’s sub-group on pre-poll alliances and is considered No. 2 in the government.
Though the Left Front has been the main rival of the Congress in Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura, outside, it is seen an ideologically ally of the Sonia Gandhi-led party in the fight against communalism.
Claiming that it would be impossible for the BJP to form a government at the Centre, Mr Antony said the Congress-led UPA would try to form a secular government after the elections. “I am sure we will succeed in it,” he told reporters on the sidelines of an election meeting at Kasargod in Kerala, according to a PTI report.
He said to keep the communal forces at bay from coming to power at the Centre, they would accept cooperation from all secular parties. “If the CPI(M) was sincere in their pronounced aim to keep the communal forces at bay, they will have to cooperate with a front under the Congress leadership. If they cooperate, we will accept it,” he said. The UPA-1 came to power at the Centre in 2004 due to the crucial outside support of the Left. This had compelled the Samajwadi Party and the BSP to back the Manmohan Singh government from outside “unconditionally”.
But the Congress had tried to isolate the Left on the issue of the nuclear deal with the US and managed numbers when the Left withdrew its support in July 2008. The SP was the first one to change its stance on the nuclear deal and thus broke away from the Left. The BSP had voted against the government during the floor test in the Lok Sabha in July 2008. That time, a section of the Congress was in favour of going to the polls but the majority was for completing the term by managing the numbers.
In May-June 2009, the Congress was not interested in continuing the experiment of the UPA and wanted to sit in the Opposition with a calculation that a new government would not last long. In that scenario, a mid-term general election would give it an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha.