'Communists to call the shots in new govt'

Rahul Gandhi (R) and Priyanka Gandhi (L) son and daughter of India's Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi meets supporters in New Delhi yesterday. India's oldest party, the Congress, virtually written off by political pundits and rivals, made a stunning comeback in national polls under the leadership of Sonia Gandhi. Results of India's staggered polls showed the party and its allies sweeping the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its coalition partners from power. PHOTO: AFP

Communists have never been part of an Indian federal government but have held iron grips over two states, where they have proved to be both stubbornly ideological and pragmatic when necessary.

Communists gained 20 more seats in the election to reach 62 MPs, who will be vital to the Congress-led alliance which has 216 seats. A government needs 272 seats for a parliamentary majority.

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"The left is the most critical ally now," said analyst Yashwant Deshmukh.

"They will be the engine that would push the train from behind. They will call the shots."

The communists have already voiced support for a government headed by Congress, the party of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty led by Italian-born Sonia Gandhi.

But the communists still have to decide whether to make the historic decision to join the government, or if they will support it from the outside.

The communists have been militant in their opposition to the privatisation championed by the defeated Hindu nationalist government, raising fears that sent the Bombay Stock Exchange plunging over six percent Friday.

"Obviously it goes without saying that policy of disinvesting public sector companies should go," Communist Party of India general secretary A.B. Bardhan told reporters.

Harkishan Singh Surjeet, general secretary at India's largest left party, the Communist Party of India-Marxist, echoed his views.

"We cannot afford it (privatisation). We oppose disinvestment of profit making companies. This policy has seriously harmed the country. This policy has to be changed," he said.

But the communists have also learned to be pragmatic, particularly in their two strongholds, the eastern state of West Bengal and the southern state of Kerala.

West Bengal, whose capital is Calcutta, has been a showcase for the CPI-M which has ruled the state without interruption for over two decades.

The state government has launched some of India's most sweeping agrarian reforms, issuing land deeds in the countryside that have given hundreds of thousands of peasants their first ever legal rights to their fields.

But more recently, the West Bengal government has tried to turn Calcutta into a new hi-tech hub and has banned IT workers from going on strike -- a policy long unthinkable for the far-left.

The moderation of the left can also be seen in the personal lives of communist leaders, some of whom have sent their children overseas for education and encouraged them to take top jobs in the corporate world.