Majority of the other statements advised the Government to either toe their line or opposed key policy issues. Most of them ended with a similar line — the Left will launch an agitation and mobilise public support against the policies of the UPA Government.

Trouble began in the first year itself when the Left parties criticised “inclusion of World Bank officials in Planning Commission”, alluding to the appointment of Montek Singh Ahluwalia as Deputy Chairman, in September 2004.

They followed it up by opposing Government plans to disinvest shares of public sector navaratnas and miniratnas and questioning scrapping of Press Note 18 in October. In December, they disapproved the ordnance route to amend the Patents Act.

They saw red in the decision to allow private domestic airlines to operate on international routes and strongly opposed the hike in FDI cap in telecom from 49 per cent to 74 per cent.

The first major showdown came in May, 2005 when the Communists decided to stop attending the UPA-Left coordination committee meetings in protest against the Cabinet decision to offload 10 per cent of Government’s equity in BHEL.

The Government had to blink after days of standoff and stopped the BHEL divestment. The Left had drawn the first blood and they then started advising Government on economic issues.

A proposal on reduced impact of price rise read: suspend road cess increase, forego increased customs and excise Duty, make additional crude cess available for stabilisation fund, suspend duty free benefit for exports and review and withdraw sales tax concessions to private refineries.

... contd.