CM-Pyari face-off: Yechury prefers to ‘wait and watch’

Political situation in the State is fluid after the expulsion of rebel BJD leader Pyarimohan Mohapatra, CPM politburo and Rajya Sabha member Sitaram Yechury preferred to ‘wait and watch’. “Changes have started taking place in Odisha politics. Let us see in which direction it is going and what changes it will bring,” Yechury told mediapersons on the sidelines of a function on Saturday.

The CPM leader said the ruling BJD’s legs were moving in different directions. “We have to see in which direction it will go. It has just begun. A different direction has been given by one of its important leaders (Pyarimohan),” he said.

The CPM which fought the last general election in understanding with the BJD said the ties with the ruling party are still intact.

 “We have been jointly fighting the Centre on the issue of foreign direct investment (FDI) in and outside  Parliament and this will continue,” he said and added that the Naveen Patnaik government has lost one of its legs (expulsion of Pyari Mohaptra).

Yechury said he came to realise that the State Government has started moving in a different direction after he arrived here.

Yechury’s statement is significant as Mohapatra had been instrumental in forging a seat adjustment between Left parties and BJD during the 2009 elections.

BJD’s seat adjustments with CPI, CPM and NCP just before the 2009 elections after severing 11-year-old ties with BJP brought a windfall for the ruling party.

NO-TRUST MOVE: Rejecting the possibility of his supporting any no-confidence motion in the winter session of Parliament, the CPM leader said in case of defeat of the motion it will be like endorsing all the decisions of the Centre for the rest of its tenure. The CPM does not want to give a clean chit to the government, he added.

When asked if CPM would support Trinamool Congress if it moved a no-confidence motion in the House, he said, the track record of the Trinamool Congress (TMC)  has been such that it says one thing and does something else.

The party will not decide till something tangible happens, he added.