SP-Congress, a tie where only interests matter

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Keywords: Indo-US Nuclear Deal, Sonia Gandhi

New Delhi: Communist Party of India-Marxist General Secretary Prakash Karat's gave the sound byte of the day when he asked United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government, "Please let us know the position by July 7, 2008."

And then the meeting of the day took place at the house of Congress President Sonia Gandhi where her lunch guests were Samajwadi Party leaders - Maulaym Singh Yadav and Amar Singh.

Once Sonia's arch foes, the lunch with the SP leaders signals the beginning of a new political alliance.

It was a meeting that signalled the political turnaround of the year. As the SP duo of Mulayam and Amar Singh met Sonia, the scent of a new alliance was in the air.

It is going to be an alliance that had been unthinkable only a few months ago.

For nine years, the SP had been kept away from the gates of 10 Janpath, ever since the SP leadership raised the issue of Sonia’s foreign origins to deny her prime ministership.

In 1999 Sonia had claimed that her party was close to form the government at Centre but in the end that was not to be.

"I don't know how many numbers they claim to have. They say I believe that they have 270. Well we have 272," Sonia had said after the fall of the 13-month-old Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.

Amar Singh had earlier accused Sonia of being vindictive.

"She has been trying to hound us ever since she has come to power and we have survived all her onslaughts," he had said.

But foreign origins appeared to have been given a quiet burial, as the Indo-US Civil Nuclear Deal and saving the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government in Parliament was the priority of the day.

Sources told CNN-IBN that the SP had agreed in principle to support the Manmohan Singh government in Parliament in any confidence vote on the nuclear issue.

"My priority is not politics as compared to the nation. My priority is to check the growth of communal forces," Amar Singh clarified why the SP was supporting the nuclear deal.

Political pragmatism appears to have scored over past hostilities. The relationship between the SP and the Congress have been so bitter in the past that one wonders how far will this new equation go.

Congress leaders are predictably cautious when asked whether the party would now have an electoral alliance in UP to counter Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati's growing clout, or whether they would agree to allow, the SP with 39 Members of Parliament, to be part of the UPA Government.

"When views converge and you act in tandem on some views the overall perspective becomes wider and converges on several issues as well," Congress Spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said.

For the SP too, a full-blown alliance with the Congress won't be easy. While inching closer to the Congress, the party doesn't want to abandon its Third Front leadership or its Left connection altogether.

But for now neither the Congress or the SP is looking too far ahead preferring to keep faith in the oldest political rule that in politics there are no permanent friends or enemies in politics, but only permanent interests.