The Left no longer has a position of pre-eminence with the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, having slid from 61 MPs in the last Lok Sabha to 24 in the present one, but it continues to cast its shadow on the political fortunes of at least one prominent Congress leader: Former Home Minister Shivraj Patil.
Patil's Rajya Sabha term ends next year. And, while the Left has only a feeble presence in Parliament, it has scuttled Patil's chances of holding another significant public office, that of Governor, West Bengal. In the last UPA government, Congress was keen to field Patil as President of India, but the Left put a spanner in the works.
Top Congress sources told Business Standard that after much discussion, the party zeroed in on Patil to replace Gopal Krishna Gandhi, who retired as Bengal governor earlier this month. Currently, Bihar governor Debananda Konwar is handling West Bengal.
According to Left sources, when central interlocutors suggested Patil's name, it was turned down. "We didn't accept Patil as President, how can we accept him as governor, who is a representative of the President," the Left posed. The grouping, especially the CPI-M, also feels Patil is "soft on RSS".
Shivraj Patil had to step down from the Union Home Minister's post after the terror attack in Mumbai on November 26, 2008.
In July 2007, exactly a year before the Left prematurely withdrew its support from the first UPA government, it had strongly objected to Patil's name as a possible candidate for the President's post.
The Left found "nothing impressive" in Patil's long career in politics and felt he should not be given the top job.
As the first UPA was heavily dependent on the Left's support at that time, Congress President Sonia Gandhi had no choice but to look for an alternative. Finally, the Congress sprang a surprise and bowled over the Left with Pratibha Patil's name as the first woman President.
The Left does not enjoy the clout it used to during the first UPA, but the Centre needs to consult the state concerned even if it wants to impose its own choice of governor on it. If the state and the Centre fail to arrive at a consensus, the Centre would have to send a panel of three names and the state would give its nod to one of them.
After missing the Bengal slot, Patil is now being considered for the governor's post in Punjab. But here, his competition is Ronen Sen, India's former envoy in Washington, who headed the embassy during the crucial tenure of Indo-US nuclear deal negotiations. Both of them are also considered very close to Sonia Gandhi.
