PM has not measured up to expectations: CPI

New Delhi, May 6: Indicting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for not 'measuring up to expectations' and Finance Minister P Chidambaram for 'helping only a coterie,' the Communist Party of India today vowed to 'seriously reconsider' the question of withdrawing support to the Congress-led UPA government after the Presidential Elections in July.

In a hard-hitting interview to the CNN-IBN, veteran Communist leader A B Bardhan said the ''non-performance'' of the UPA government during the past three years had made the BJP a beneficiary.

The CPI General Secretary said the economic policies of the UPA government were taken forward by Finance Minister Chidambaram and Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia because ''he (Dr Singh) wants them and they have his blessings.'' ''Dr Singh cannot avoid blame. He is very much part of the economic policies that are being carried out. I don't absolve him at all,'' Mr Bardhan asserted, while pointing out that ''as the Prime Minister of the UPA government which we support from outside and of which we have expectations, he has not measured up to those expectations.'' On the need to review support to the UPA government, he said he was extremely serious this time about his call to reconsider support and that he was under tremendous pressure from his own party and the Left as a whole.

''It is a serious concern because of the way things are going on.

This time I mean it. It is not just a threat. In fact, the party is pushing me. They're telling me, again and again, what's this going on? The government does not listen to you people. They don't carry out any demands that you make.'' In this context, he said the four Left parties would meet after the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections and the Presidential elections to ''seriously consider'' the question of withdrawing support.

Apparently keeping in mind a recent statement by CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat that the Left would not pull down the Manmohan Singh government, Mr Bardhan said though the Marxist Party outnumbered the other three Left parties (CPI, RSP and the Forward Bloc), the issue of withdrawing support would not be decided on the strength of numbers.

''It is not a question of vote, of three versus one. It is a question of persuading, arguing and discussing,'' he said.

Asked if he would push his line strenuously, Mr Bardhan said ''Why else am I saying this publicly? Otherwise I would have kept it to myself.'' Questioning the style of functioning of the UPA-Left Coordination Committee, which has not met during the past seven months, he said ''I am not prepared to sit in a meeting and hear Chidambaram lecturing to me. It is not worthwhile just to hear these lectures. We know economics just as much as he does. If he has certain policies or viewpoints he wants to push through, he is welcome to push them through but not with our support obviously.'' Mr Bardhan, however, added that Mr Chidambaram is personally a ''likeable man.'' ''But as Finance Minister I don't think he has been doing this country proud. I think he's been helping only a coterie.''

UNI