``LET'S withdraw, my lord.'' That is Scene 1, Act III of Hamlet. Everybody kn-ows the line that follows: ``To be or not to be...'', Hamlet's famous soliloquy.

A producer wanting to cast a Hamlet from the actors on the political stage would find no shortage of potential princes of Denmark. There are enough jelly-spines amongst the Congress and the United Front wondering ``whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles.''But who would be the pompous and windy Polonius, the man who expressed the desire quoted above to withdraw? Given the Congress president's penchant to withdraw support, he seems to fit the bill. And it is rather apt, isn't it, that this is the third, ahem!, scene he has created by threatening to withdraw.

Scene I began with the withdrawal of support to the Deve Gowda-led UF ministry. Scene II was the threat to withdraw if the BJP ministry in Uttar Pradesh wasn't dismissed. And Scene III is in its final act.

But hang on a minute. I for one am not so sure that Chacha Kesri is the only shrinking violet on the scene. Step forward the CPI(M).

The CPI(M) has played an ignoble, if generally ignored, part in the past eighteen months. On the first occasion that Kesri pulled rank on the UF, the CPI(M) began by breathing defiance. But it was the Left's defection that ultimately did Deve Gowda in.

On Uttar Pradesh, the Marxists were as vociferous as Kesri himself. ``If you have a Sitaram (Kesri), we too have a Sitaram (Yechuri)'' seemed the general attitude. But confronted by a President determined to protect the Constitution, the Marxists prudently withdrew to a holier-than-thou pedestal.

And now we come to the face-off over the DMK. True to form, the CPI(M) proved the weakest link in the UF chain. In other words, Comrade Harkishen Singh Surjeet was the first to propose withdrawing support to the DMK if the Congress preserved the UF government in Delhi.

Is that surprising? Well, only if you have been hypnotised by the CPI(M)'s self-serving declarations on political morality. The truth is that Surjeet has as big a stake in the status quo as Sitaram Kesri.

Both men could rise to national prominence only in the political uncertainty caused by the last General Election. If they themselves can't settle down on Race Course Road, they can play kingmaker and, subsequently, puppet-master.What happens in the event of mid-term polls? For starters, a General Election will dramatically demonstrate just how little both men count for in their home states. In Kesri's Bihar, the Congress is little more than Laloo Prasad Yadav's poodle. And in Punjab, Surjeet's men couldn't win one seat in the last Assembly polls.

In the context of Delhi at any rate, it is Surjeet who speaks for the party today. And on the specific issue of the Jain Commission's findings, the CPI(M) General Secretary is closer to the Congress than to, say, the regional parties in the UF.

The Congress does not want to focus on Justice Jain's remarks about missing files, the denial of evidence by the Narasimha Rao ministry, or the attempt to derail the investigation through a public interest litigation. Nor does the CPI(M).

The Congress is silent on Justice Jain's stinging remarks on the dubious role played by P. Chidambaram (who began by damning the DMK, and ended up in bed with it.) So is the CPI(M). The Congress isn't concerned about the legal status of the Jain Commission's conclusions. Nor is the CPI(M).

The Congress doesn't want us to recall a statement made in Parliament by S.B. Chavan, then Home Minister, that certain files weren't being given to the Jain Commission to save the reputation of ``a family''. Nor does the CPI(M).

I could go on, but why bother? The point is that on each of the fundamental issues thrown up by Justice Jain, the CPI(M) is willing to accept the Congress valuation. This boils down to singling out the DMK.

Please note that this isn't particularly surprising. The Congress and the DMK have a decades-old history of bad blood. But how many recall that in the Lok Sabha elections of 1996, the CPI(M) fought against the DMK?

Interestingly, Surjeet's chosen comrade-in-arms in Tamil Nadu was a certain Gopalaswamy, a man who had broken away from the parent DMK. Please note that Gopalaswamy had previously accepted Prabhakaran's hospitality in Sri Lanka. In fact, he complained that the Indian and Tamil Nadu governments weren't doing enough to aid the poor, beleaguered LTTE.

Given Surjeet's sterling record in Punjab, it was no surprise that his antics in Tamil Nadu didn't produce a single Lok Sabha seat. The point, however, is that the DMK and the CPI(M) are uneasy partners. Small wonder if Surjeet is willing to give Karunanidhi a bad name and hang him.

Which is more than Justice Jain himself was willing to do. I suspect that Kesri hasn't bothered to actually read the Interim Report. But shouldn't the CPI(M) -- with all its professed respect for dialectics -- see what Milap Chand Jain wrote?

There is no, repeat no, mention of a DMK role in the plot to kill Rajiv Gandhi. (There is, however, clear mention of the V.P. Singh ministry's failure to appreciate the threat to the former Prime Minister.)

But the innocence of the DMK is irrelevant just now. The CPI(M) is only concerned about the survival of the UF ministry. So Kesri proposes, and the Marxist Fifth Column cheerfully seconds the motion to expel the DMK.

``The ruling ideas of each age,'' wrote Karl Marx, ``have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.'' In the Gujral era it is the Congress president and his coterie who constitute the ruling class. We shouldn't be too surprised if their ideas sway the Marxists.

So who would our hypothetical producer plump for as the flatulent Polonius? Well, it could be a Tariq Anwar posing that question to Kesri today. But tomorrow it could just as easily be a Yechuri asking Surjeet.

What lines should we allot to Kesri himself? Perhaps the ones beginning: ``Friends, Romans, countrymen...'' Though Chacha would be content if that one very special Roman lent an ear.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.