The Hindu Business Line : <I>Left won't rock UPA boat </I>

Though the Left parties supporting the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) have made it clear that they would not withdraw support to the Manmohan Singh Government, the thumping victories of the Left parties in Kerala and West Bengal have made the Congress cautious about its economic and foreign policies.

The first reading of the election results from four States and one Union Territory makes it clear that the alliance partners in the UPA have emerged stronger after the polls and are likely to wield greater power within the alliance than before.

Asked about the future of the Manmohan Singh Government, CPI(M) leaders said it would last its full term. The CPI General-Secretary, Mr A.B. Bardhan's response was that the Left parties were not known to pull the rug. At the same time, both the parties sent out strong signals that the Congress should heed the election verdict and take lessons from it.

"We don't want the Congress to follow the CPM, we want it to follow the CMP (Common Minimum Programme)," CPI(M) Member of Parliament, Mr Mohammad Salim, said.

The Left parties have been opposing a number of economic initiatives of the UPA Government such as disinvestment of Navratna public sector undertakings, the move to hike foreign direct investment limit in insurance, opening up the retail trade to foreign investment and even the petroleum products price hike.

It was expected that after the elections, they would soften their stand on these issues as electoral compulsions would be out of the way, but the message today was that the Left parties would take a stronger stand in the co-ordination committee meetings where discordant issues are thrashed out.

From the Congress, the Union Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, told the media that a number of contentious issues had been sorted out with the Left parties in the past and urged everybody to work in the same spirit of co-operation in future too.