AB Bardhan with Ajit Singh in New Delhi on Thursday. Picture by Prem Singh

New Delhi, July 19: At 82, A.B. Bardhan is doing a Harkishen Singh Surjeet for the Left, albeit the other way round.

Four years after the former CPM chief played a key role in stitching the UPA together, running about and meeting various party bosses despite being in the late 80s, Bardhan is now working just as hard to oust that coalition from power.

The CPI general secretary regularly drives out of party headquarters Ajoy Bhavan in search of prospective allies to defeat the July 22 trust motion, holding talks at their homes in a persuasive, Surjeet-like tone.

His style contrasts rather sharply with CPM general secretary Prakash Karat’s, as the now-ailing Surjeet’s once did.

Karat has hardly ever betrayed any keenness to step out of A.K. Gopalan Bhavan: his trip to Mayavati’s Delhi residence, although a master-stroke, was more of an exception than the rule.

The CPM chief prefers to talk to leaders of other parties over the phone, as he did with National Conference president Omar Abdullah, or meet them in his office, as with the Telugu Desam Party’s N. Chandrababu Naidu. For the rest, he is happy addressing a few meetings to reaffirm that the Left would make it “politically impossible” for the government to go ahead with the nuclear deal.

It has fallen to Bardhan, 22 years older, to jump into the thick of the action to try and marshal the numbers for the trust vote.

The merest flicker of hope was enough to drive him to Rashtriya Lok Dal boss Ajit Singh’s doorstep to explain the Left stand on the nuclear deal. Bardhan has held several meetings with Chandrababu Naidu, including one today.

He has also kept lines of communication open with Telengana Rashtra Samiti leader K. Chandrashekhara Rao, who has worked hard to try and bring Ajit and Mayavati together. Rao will be meeting Bardhan tomorrow. More meetings with the Andhra politicians are likely since they will be in Delhi till July 22.

The CPI chief had dinner tonight with former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda who, Left sources claimed, would “convey his ‘sorry’ to the Prime Minister for being unable to vote for his government”.

Bardhan had met Gowda and one of his three Janata Dal (Secular) MPs, M.P. Veerendra Kumar, earlier too. Coincidence or not, within days of his meeting with Bardhan, Veerendra declared in Kerala yesterday that all three MPs of his party would vote against the government.

Veerendra, the JD(S) chief whip in the Lok Sabha, was elected with Left help from Kerala where his party is part of the Left Democratic Front. Gowda’s other two MPs, however, are from Karnataka where the party is not a Left partner.

Bardhan had also explored the possibility of a meeting with Jharkhand Mukti Morcha chief Shibu Soren, but it was cancelled at the last moment.