NEW DELHI, July 7: The Congress today slammed the Left Front and showed signs of going soft on Laloo Prasad Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in an apparent attempt to split the United Front (UF) further.

The attack on the Left came in Congress president Sitaram Kesri's address to 18 Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leaders at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) headquarters today.

``The BJP and the Left have joined hands in maligning the Congress. The Left has not yet shed its anti-Congressism and its propaganda against the Congress is on charges of corruption,'' Kesri said.

``In my experience, more than 90 per cent of Congressmen are honest. It is therefore necessary to expose the BJP and the Left.'' It was a harsh attack and seemed to have been made to send various signals to the UF, currently busy in trying to sort out the mess the Janata Dal (JD) finds itself in.

Kesri equated the Left Front Government in West Bengal with the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Government in Maharashtra in terms of corruption, and asked party cadres to expose corruption in Bengal and Maharashtra. ``You must expose corruption in non-Congress Governments,'' he said.

This is possibly the first time that Kesri has equated the Left with the BJP in recent times, knowing fully well that the Left usually reacts to such charges in strong terms. Apparently, Kesri is aiming to push the Left into a further hardening of stance on the question of Laloo's immediate political future within the UF.

The Left has been consistently calling for Yadav's resignation as Chief Minister after he was chargesheeted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the multi-crore fodder scam.

The recent split in the JD is being seen as negative by the Left, and the four main Left parties are slated to meet this week and make their stand on the RJD known.

But, by attacking the Left today, Kesri is indirectly going soft on the RJD, without committing himself on the issue of corruption.

The calculation, according to some Congress leaders, is that the Left would take an even more rigid stance on Laloo and may say no to his being in the UF. While putting the Left and the BJP on the same side, Kesri took care to say that the Congress has ``fundamental ideological differences with the BJP and would never have any truck with it''.

On Laloo, Kesri said the ``national interest would take precedence over regional interests''. The Congress president felt that fighting the BJP was the primary intention of the Congress and communalism had to be stopped at any cost.

There was no mention of Congress spokesperson V N Gadgil's statement some days ago that Laloo must resign.

There is, thus, evidence of Kesri hedging on the question of Bihar and Laloo in this current situation of flux. The party has officially not discussed the issue, according to Gadgil.

Bihar Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Ramashrey Prasad Singh apparently said in today's meeting with Kesri that the Bihar CLP would abide by the party high command's decision on the issue of supporting the RJD in Bihar.

But even this does not mean any unity of thought over the continuance of Laloo as Chief Minister.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.