Amid talks of a “third front’’, a delegation of the YSR Congress met the Communist Party of India (Marxist) leadership in New Delhi on Tuesday. Their primary concern at this juncture apparently was the situation in Andhra Pradesh following the Union Cabinet’s decision to bifurcate the State.
According to CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat, the two parties were like-minded on the need for a united Andhra Pradesh, maintaining that nothing else was discussed at the meeting with YSR Congress leader Y.S. Vijayamma. Ms. Vijayamma is in the capital to meet the President and leaders of various political parties on the need to keep the State united.
Meanwhile, the CPI(M) — contrary to reports from the Telugu Desam Party — maintained that its Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury did not go to Andhra Bhavan in the Capital on Monday to call on the fasting former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu.
Ever since Mr. Naidu made remarks favouring the National Democratic Alliance, the CPI(M) has become a tad wary of the TDP — a former ally in the National Front and United Front Governments. With reports that a sizable section of the TDP is in favour of the party returning to the NDA — with which it had parted company after the 2004 election debacle — the Left is not making any overtures.
Meanwhile, Mr. Karat along with Polit Bureau members from Kerala — S. Ramachandran Pillai and M. A. Baby — visited Defence Minister A. K. Antony at the Army’s R&R Hospital where he is recuperating after a prostrate surgery. Mr. Antony is heading the Congress committee on alliances ahead of the elections but the CPI(M) leaders maintained that this was a courtesy call on an ailing politician.
