New Delhi, Nov. 17: A plain-speaking Sonia Gandhi today underlined the need for give and take in coalition politics but made clear her party was not ready to “forfeit” its political space for ever.

At the AICC deliberations here, the Congress chief also talked tough on party discipline and even took a swipe at her allies.

A hold-all resolution adopted at the session, however, reflected the pulls and pressures of coalition politics as it summed up ally CPM’s bloody recapture of Nandigram in just three lines.

Sonia said a coalition demanded “constructive cooperation” from every party. “But being part of a coalition also does not mean we forfeit our political standing for ever.”

“It is my firm belief that we should work to restore to the Congress its pre-eminnce,” she added, because the Congress was the “only party which has a presence throughout the country… represents every section”.

The resolution called for “give and take, compromise and consensus” and applauded the allies for giving a “whole new dimension” to the country’s politics and economics”, but betrayed the party’s dilemma on coalition politics with its comment on Nandigram.

All that it said about the violence was that it was the “natural outcome of a system” where “interests” of party cadres are placed above those of “people at large and the law-and-order machinery is not allowed to function professionally”. Sonia didn’t utter a word on the bloodshed.

On foreign policy, however, the Congress had a thing or two to say to the Left. The resolution said it was the Congress that had put in place a policy based on peace and non-alignment, “based wholly on national self-interest”, and the party needed no “lessons” from anyone in pursuing an independent line.

Without naming the DMK, the resolution said the Congress was “hurt” at the eulogy to the LTTE — an allusion to the poem southern ally M. Karunanidhi penned on Tamilselvan, the political secretary of the banned Tigers who was killed by Sri Lankan forces.

The AICC took a swipe at NCP boss Sharad Pawar — though it didn’t name the food and agriculture minister — for putting food security “under stress”.

When it came to her party, Sonia didn’t sugar-coat her messages. She said neither she nor her son Rahul, a newly appointed general secretary, had a “magic wand” and the party would have to collectively solve its problems.

No bargain: Karat

CPM general secretary Prakash Karat denied any give-and-take on Nandigram and the nuclear deal.

“When this (the nuclear deal) was discussed all through September and October, Nandigram was not an issue at all,” he said after the Left’s consent on IAEA talks.

“You cannot decide national policy on the basis of what happens in one block in Bengal,” Karat added.