Political free hits

Published : May 21, 2010 00:00 IST

Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Lalu Prasad and Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, among others, when they walked out during the voting on the cut motions in the Lok Sabha on April 27.-SUBHAV SHUKLA/PTI

Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Lalu Prasad and Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, among others, when they walked out during the voting on the cut motions in the Lok Sabha on April 27.-SUBHAV SHUKLA/PTI

A MOOD of elation prevailed at an informal gathering of some Congress politicians, including a couple of senior Parliament members, near the Central Hall of Parliament a day after the defeat of the cut motions. The Manmohan Singh-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government had not only weathered the cut motions challenge but, in the process, exposed the conflicting interests, pressures and divisions within the opposition ranks. The active support the UPA got from the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) during the vote and the abstentions forced out of the Samajwadi Party (S.P.) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) got highlighted in the discussions at the gathering. The general agreement was that the Congress had come up with yet another realpolitik masterstroke.

However, serious concern was expressed over the seemingly never-ending controversies and scandals that the UPA government was getting embroiled in, almost on a daily basis. Even as the Congress politicians were taking stock of the situation post-cut motions, proceedings in both Houses of Parliament were disrupted by yet another controversial revelation. This was regarding the tapping of the telephones of the public relations lobbyist Nira Radia as part of the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) inquiry into the 2G spectrum scam.

The scam relates to the allocation of 2G spectrum in 2008. It is widely believed that allocation was made without following the norms and procedures and that it caused a colossal loss of Rs.60,000 crore to the state exchequer. The CBI suspected Nira Radia had a role in influencing the spectrum auctions and allocations and this led to the tapping of her phones. The immediate political impact of this was the infusion of a new vigour into the opposition benches on a day they should have been otherwise down and out, following the defeat of the cut motions.

The Congress leaders did not miss the renewed fighting spirit of the opposition. A senior Congress MP in the group surmised that the 2010 Budget session of Parliament could go down in history as one that witnessed a series of scams and controversies. Making a quick count, he added that at least half a dozen Ministers had been caught in controversies, either on account of their personal conduct or on the basis of policy issues, in the second half of the Budget session alone. Remember, we are talking about a period between two and three weeks, and in this short duration six Ministers of this government have made themselves available for concerted opposition attacks. One of them has already lost his job and the others are holding on, but given the inconsistencies of politics nobody can be sure about their continuation in office, he said.

He was obviously referring to Shashi Tharoor, the Minister of State for External Affairs who was asked to resign following allegations that he had obtained pecuniary advantage in the form of sweat equity for his friend Sunanda Pushkar in the Indian Premier Leagues new Kochi franchise. The other politicians to face the opposition onslaught on the basis of allegations that they or members of their families obtained illicit pecuniary advantage through IPL transactions included Agriculture Minister and president of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Sharad Pawar and his party colleague and Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel.

Home Minister P. Chidambaram was also caught in the current of controversies on two counts. The first was about the revelations regarding the tapping of the phones of leaders such as Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Prakash Karat, Sharad Pawar and Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh. The second controversy related to the Home Ministrys strategy to tackle the Maoist insurgency. Even Congress leaders such as Digvijay Singh and Mani Shankar Aiyar criticised Chidambarams policy thrusts.

Telecommunications Minister A. Raja, belonging to the Dravida Munnetra Kazhakam (DMK), whose 2G spectrum allocations have come back into focus through the revelation about the tapping of Nira Radias phones, was another Minister listed by the MP. M.K. Azhagiri, Minister for Chemicals and Fertilizers and son of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi, was also the target of sustained opposition attack, on account of his long absence from the House.

Analysing the overall picture that emerged over the last two weeks of April, the MP told Frontline that the political climate reminded him of the situation that had developed between 1984 and 1989.

Then, the Congress had come to power with the largest number of Lok Sabha seats ever and was under the charismatic leadership of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. There were high hopes about the new initiatives, but within a span of two and a half years the government got mired in a series of controversies, such as the passage of the Muslim Personal Law Bill and the unlocking of the Babri Masjid for worship by Hindus, which was followed by corruption scandals ranging from the Bofors howitzer case to the HDW submarine deal. The overconfidence generated by the massive majority in the Lok Sabha had seemingly made the government reckless, and this in turn virtually deprived it of the political advantage given by the brute majority. This time, too, the Congress and the UPA came back to power with a relatively comfortable majority. Large sections of the party leadership seem to be suffering from a kind of arrogant overconfidence. I can smell a whiff of 1984 in all this, the MP, who was prominent in the opposition benches in the 1980s, said.

Professor Sudhir Kumar Panwar, political observer and president of the Kisan Jagriti Manch, a collective of activists and academics that addresses the concerns of farmers and seeks to make them part of the think tanks and policymaking bodies, perceives a larger trend in the current manifestation of controversies and scams. He told Frontline that all this was symptomatic of the absence of a larger political direction and control in the running of the second UPA government. The most striking characteristic of UPA II is a kind of ad hocism where several Ministers and organisational leaders are pursuing their whims and fancies with no accountability. This is reflected in attempts such as the half-hearted promotion of the Womens Reservation Bill. The functioning of UPA I was different, for most part of its tenure, as the pressures that it had to face from a supporting group such as the Left were essentially political, Sudhir Kumar said. He added that in this climate of ad hocism it was quite natural that the primary concerns and pursuits of UPA II were driven by realpolitik interests. The fact that many parties in the opposition are short-sighted and driven by the same kind of ad hocism should certainly help the Congress advance its realpolitik interests. That is why the government was able to use something like the bogey of inquiries by the CBI to rein in some opposition leaders and parties, Sudhir Kumar said.

The developments in Parliament in the run-up to and during the voting on the cut motions do emphasise Sudhir Kumars observations. It is well known in political circles that the ongoing investigations by the CBI into various cases faced by leaders such as Mayawati, S.P. leader Mulayam Singh Yadav and RJD chief Lalu Prasad forced them to change their anti-government stances to one of support or at least neutrality. All three of them are facing investigation into charges of holding assets disproportionate to their known sources of income. The CBI gave Mayawati a reprieve even before the voting on the cut motions. On April 23, four days before the voting, the CBI told the Supreme Court that it was inclined to reconsider the charges against Mayawati.

Another striking example of what the carrot-and-stick policy can achieve is the turnaround of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader Shibu Soren, who voted in favour of the government despite becoming the Chief Minister of Jharkhand with the support of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the principal opposition party at the Centre. The Supreme Court is slated to hear the kidnapping and murder case relating to the death of Sorens former private secretary, Shashi Nath Jha, on July 20.

The incident took place in 1994. Jhas brother Vijaynath and daughter Preeti had appealed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seeking justice. Interestingly, the verdict on another murder case involving Soren was put off by the Giridih sessions court in Jharkhand on April 13.

However, all the leaders who are facing charges, barring Soren, justified the positions they had adopted on the cut motions. Mayawati said that although she had differences with the UPA government on a number of issues ranging from price rise to the neglect of Uttar Pradesh, the BSP had decided to vote in favour of the government because it did not want the communal BJP to get any political advantage. Mulayam Singh and Lalu Prasad did not like the idea of voting along with the BJP, and this factor must have compelled them to abstain from voting. Sorens justification was perhaps the most original. He said he was suffering from Alzheimers disease and this caused him to get confused between the UPA and the NDA (National Democratic Alliance) and resulted in his cross-voting.

There is little doubt that in this game of competitive ad hocism, the BJP and the Left parties have failed to build up a united opposition platform even on vital issues such as price rise. Because of this, the governments fears in the early part of the Budget session about a cumulative opposition challenge on pressing issues did not materialise.

But the Congress leadership cannot take the support or neutrality of parties such as the BSP, the S.P. and the RJD for granted. Past experience has shown that it does not take too much for these parties to turn the realpolitik tables on the Congress. But such turning of tables would also mark the perpetuation of the politics of ad hocism. The moot question is whether the polity can afford to trek this path for long. If scandals such as the IPL meltdown and the stasis in the progress of the Womens Reservation Bill (which was introduced in the Rajya Sabha with much fanfare, driven by Congress president Sonia Gandhi herself) are anything to go by, the answer is firmly in the negative.

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