Letting Things Go....

The Left Front has issued the following statement:

The Minister for External Affairs, Shri Pranab Mukherjee, announced on July 8, 2008 at a press conference that the government would send India’s safeguards agreement to the International Atomic Energy Agency Board for approval only if it won the trust vote in parliament. “I cannot bind the government if we lose our majority”, he said.

He also stated that he had consulted the Prime Minister who was in Japan, in this regard.

Coming hours after the announcement that the Left parties had decided to withdraw support to the government, this was a solemn commitment to the country that the government would not proceed to the Board of Governors of the IAEA till the government proved its majority in parliament.

It is shocking that less than twenty four hours of such a statement, the IAEA has announced that at the request of the Government of India, the text has been submitted to the Board for its consideration. (Annexure – press release of the IAEA).

It's like a bad marriage that mercifully comes to an end and one of the partners is having a hard time letting go. Congress has already moved on; but the Left Front has not: coming to the bitter realization that it has no where to go, that it never had it so good as it did with Congress.

This saga has all the ingredients of a bad Indian soap opera or Bollywood film, replete with formulaic happy endings except, in this case, the ending is a sad one. The Left Front was hoping - rather foolishly - that Congress would, like many times before, beg them to come back because Congress needs the Left Front than the Left Front needs it. But Congress, tired of the political blackmail and the whining and complaining, doesn't need or want the Left Front anymore, but has taken a new lover, the Samajwadi Party.