Well, the RSP, small as it is even in its state of origin, is ideologically to the left of capital-courting Big Brother CPM from all visible and audible evidence. Roy himself has said that the Left should have withdrawn support to UPA-I much earlier — in 2005, over price rise and economic reforms. Now, his party has always been critical of Stalinism, without really adhering to Trotskyism. But could one be forgiven for being tempted to wonder if Roy’s second proposal to the PM — to immediately bar government functionaries from using Bharti’s telecom services — has a hint of the Stalinist instinct behind it?

Roy is a veteran of letters on corporate affairs to the Centre. This one, he says, was prompted by fears of India’s national security being compromised since MTN is present in Iran, Syria, Sudan, Ivory Coast — all states under US sanctions. That’s either downright inconsistency in someone consistently critical, on record, of US sanctions and policy towards Iran — and even of India’s anti-Iran stand at the IAEA — or unnatural ideological flexibility in one who believes a communist should be rigid. Or maybe, Roy, unwittingly, has graduated to India’s post-ideological politics.