Despite the middle class glee at the removal of the Left as the UPA Government's veto authority, the ruling coalition's members themselves have been cautious and calibrated in their responses. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has gone out of his way to praise the Communist leaders' "patriotism". Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav has declared his undying love for the Left, using an old Hindi film song to sum up his emotions.

Mr Amar Singh has said he respects the Left and "will keep respecting them in future". Outside the UPA, the new leader of the UNPA, Mr N Chandrababu Naidu, sees himself as a friend of the Left. Few other than the BJP and its most committed partners want permanent hostility with the Left.

After all if, as is expected, the Congress loses ground considerably in the 2009 Lok Sabha election and if, as is feared, the BJP does not gain enough seats, another UPA-Left coalition may be necessary. The leadership may not be with the Congress but both Ms Sonia Gandhi's party and the Left will be needed to provide the parliamentary numbers.

Mr AB Bardhan, general secretary of the CPI and perhaps the most willing media interviewee in the past four years, has held out hope already. "No rupture is a permanent one," he told Hindustan Times, "An occasion may arise ... We have to fight against imperialism and communalism. Many of the UPA partners are our allies."

As such, at some future date, the Congress, the regional parties and the Left could be together again, as they were in 1996 and 2004. Yet, at a fundamental level, the equation has changed. This perception underlines the 'magnanimity' of the caste-based parties and the undeniable defensiveness of the Left itself. A stark and compelling truth is there for all to see -- the Left has been shown up as a paper tiger.

The nature of the Left's isolation in the past two weeks has exposed its inadequacies very cruelly. It is now seen as an immature, even amateur, power practitioner. It is one thing to suggest that Mr Prakash Karat is a wholesome individual, it is quite another to see him as adept at realpolitik. That aura has been shattered.

To be fair, not all of it is Mr Karat's doing. In some ways, the chemistry of Indian politics has changed in the past decade, or even the past four years, and the Communists have simply been swept aside by new verities.

It is tempting to draw a comparison with 1996 - the base year in terms of contemporary coalition building. In 1996, the Left provided the glue for the Congress and the smaller, regional parties, whether the RJD, the SP or even the DMK and the TDP.

For many State leaders -- such as Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav, Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav and Mr Chandrababu Naidu -- this was their first experience of power-sharing and negotiation on a national stage. They looked upon the Left as an intermediary. That Mr Harkishen Singh Surjeet -- Mr Karat's predecessor as CPI(M) general secretary - had an excellent working relationship with people like Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav helped.

The Congress too was new to the coalition game. It didn't understand the incoherent Third Front types and preferred speaking through the CPI(M). There was a certain comfort level in talking to Mr Surjeet or even Mr Jyoti Basu that was absent in, say, a PV Narasimha Rao-Lal Prasad Yadav meeting.

Today, things are different. After a period of wrenching denial, the Congress realises coalitions are here to stay and regional parties have to be courted. State chieftains like the Yadavs -- or, though she's admittedly never seen eye-to-eye with the Left, Ms Mayawati -- don't want to outsource their negotiations with the Congress. They prefer to cut deals themselves. The Left is without a job.

Second, the UPA years have conclusively destroyed the claim that the Communists are seasoned politicos, tactical geniuses and naturals at governance. For years, primarily because of its long rule in West Bengal, this was the image of the senior leadership of the Left. As it happened, it was largely believed only outside West Bengal, particularly by impressionable journalists and fellow travellers in Delhi.

As early as 1996, when the late Indrajit Gupta became Home Minister in the United Front Government, the mask began to crack. A man of rare polish and integrity, Gupta was a stalwart parliamentarian. He was, unfortunately, completely out of his depth in Government. His trademark candour and bluntness became a handicap in North Block.

While some may prefer to romanticise it as one of the 'what ifs' of history, the fact is, if Mr Basu had indeed become Prime Minister in the late-1990s, he would have been an Indrajit Gupta on a larger scale. Amid a largely servile media and with small-time political opponents, Mr Basu easily negotiated Kolkata's political pond. It is questionable how easily he would have swum in Delhi's choppy seas.

The UPA period has uncovered the Left's limitations even more than the 1996-97 UF interlude did. Mr Karat and his team of extraordinarily grim and grumpy MPs have been unequal to the challenge of an initially sympathetic but congenitally intrusive and interrogative media. They have also been shown up for a poor sense of priorities.

Whether it was labour unrest at a Honda motorcycle factory in Gurgaon or liberal FDI norms in insurance, whether it was Indo-American air exercises or private management of Delhi airport, every issue became a crisis, a matter of life and death.

Politics cannot sustain brinkmanship every single day. Mr Karat was right in guessing that the nuclear deal was the first step towards a stronger strategic link with the US, and if he had focussed on just that point he may have found an audience.

Bizarrely, the Left had already "suspend(ed) participation" in the UPA-Left Coordination Committee on such worthy issues as disinvestment in Bharat Heavy Electricals. By the time it added the nuclear deal to its list of grievances, its political capital and goodwill had been anyway depleted.

This tactical short-sightedness proved its undoing. It explains why, if and when future 'secular' coalitions are formed, the Left will not be master of ceremonies. It is as powerful as a punctured balloon.

Courtesy: www.dailypioneer.com, July 11, 2008