Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee called up Communist Party of India (Marxist) Polit Bureau member Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Thursday and reportedly sought the Marxist party's support for the Congress nominee for the Presidential election, sources in the CPI(M) told The Hindu.
There were reports that Mr. Mukherjee also called up Biman Bose, another Polit Bureau member and the party's West Bengal Secretary.
Asked to comment on the Left parties' stand on the Presidential election, Mr. Bose, also chairman of the State Left Front Committee, said: “The four Left parties will hold discussions in Delhi and take a final decision on the matter.”
The national leadership of the Left parties could take a decision only after became clear.
On the present stand of the Trinamool Congress and the Samajwadi Party on the Presidential nominee, he said: “Every party has its own political calculations. Every party proceeds based on its own political calculations and internal culture and accordingly takes its decisions.”
Buddhdeb is an old collaborator and no doubt he would put pressure on CPM to support Pranab Mukherjee,a failed Finance Minister. CPM's failure to pursue the anti imperialist line stands out in glaring contrast with the Venezuelan experiment. While the party was right in standing up (albeit belatedly) against US Imperialism on the ground that the nuclear deal was pushing the country into the 'strategic embrace' of the United States helping it to proposed the name of Pranab Mukherjee as the UPA consensus candidate for the office of The President in 2007 forgetting that he was the chief architect for the military cooperation agreement with the United States. This created a big credibility gap about its sincere commitment to anti imperialist course. CPM is not known to have taken up cudgel in the public against Pranab Da's Speech at Carnegie Foundation a couple of years back where he had talked about, 'Total convergence' of values and interests between the US and India.
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