The News International (Pakistan) - March 30, 2013

by Praful Bidwai

When Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress, the second largest component of India’s ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA), walked out of the alliance last September, nobody thought that would immediately destabilise the government.

Although the UPA’s Lok Sabha strength suddenly fell to 254, well below the effective half-way mark (271), it seemed confident of retaining the ‘outside support’ of 28 MPs belonging to Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) (21), Lalu Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (4) and the Deve Gowda-led Janata Dal-Secular (3).

Although the support of Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party (SP) (22) remained uncertain, the pro-UPA numbers still added up to a clear majority of 282 seats.

The picture changed dramatically on March 19, when the ethnic-Tamil Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), with 18 MPs, quit the UPA on the issue of condemning as ‘genocide’ the killing of thousands of Tamil civilians in Sri Lanka during the final phase of the Eelam War in 2009. The DMK, which demanded a tough resolution against the Sri Lankan government at the UN Human Rights Council, was posturing. It did nothing to help the Lankan Tamils or raise the issue of their killings for years.

The DMK’s real grouse with the UPA was probably that its MPs, including DMK president M Karunanidhi’s daughter Kanimozhi Karunanidhi, were detained for long periods on serious corruption charges in the telecom scam. A new charge sheet against Kanimozhi, soon expected, could lead to her re-arrest and attachment of her property.

The party was being disingenuous. But by quitting, it rendered the UPA super-vulnerable. Mulayam Singh quickly seized the chance to needle the UPA by capitalising on an accusation about his alleged links to ‘terrorism’ levelled by steel minister BP Verma, a former Mulayam friend and fellow-Socialist.

Having first accepted Verma’s apology, Yadav abruptly decided to disrupt the working of parliament – until Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde went down on their knees.

Then came Yadav’s surprising statement rebuking his son, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, for poor governance, and praising Bharatiya Janata Party leader LK Advani as ‘an honest politician’. Why, he cited Advani on UP’s deteriorating law and order situation and accused the UPA of being corrupt and weak.

The SP chief was trying to assert himself as an elder statesman with a legitimate aspiration to a prominent national role. His praise for Advani was astonishing given their past adversarial relationship and the BJP’s early 1990s campaign against ‘Maulana Mulayam’ for his defence of Muslims against Hindutva.

He is known to keep his cards close to his chest and spring political surprises on the unlikeliest of issues. This became evident a year ago with his party’s impressive victory in UP. After keeping everyone in suspense, he overruled senior SP leaders by appointing Akhilesh, not himself, as the chief minister.

During the presidential election last July too, Yadav’s lieutenants indicated that he favoured the UPA candidate, Pranab Mukherjee. But he surprised all by joining Mamata Banerjee to propose three impossible-sounding names: former President APJ Abdul Kalam, former Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee and Manmohan Singh, no less. Then, after meeting Sonia Gandhi, he suddenly backed Mukherjee.

Yadav is mercurial and unpredictable. Even so, only three factors explain his statement praising Advani it was a calculated tactic to ‘soften up’ the BJP (in case the UPA retaliates against him); to sow confusion within the Sangh Parivar, and to take the limelight away from Narendra Modi as the BJP’s front-runner prime ministerial aspirant. The BJP was flummoxed.

He knows that Modi, who presided over Independent India’s worst butchery of Muslims, would sharply polarise opinion in the next election: Muslims might vote en masse for the Congress – primarily to keep the BJP out of national power. This wouldn’t work to the SP’s benefit. So Yadav craftily insinuated Advani into the picture.

Yadav may have succeeded in suggesting that the electoral race is more open than it appears to many who are unduly influenced by the media’s portrayal of the next election as a presidential system-style contestation between Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi.

He has since made overtures to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. His son Akhilesh has said that the SP may withdraw support to the UPA “You will see what happens in the current budget session. Our party brass will decide when we pull the plug...We have our political blueprint ready after the pullout. We are ready for elections anytime.” For good measure, he added: “The Congress cannot tame us into submission with the fear of the Central Bureau of Investigation...”

Withdrawal of support by the SP would put the UPA’s survival at immediate risk. The SP is keen on an early Lok Sabha election – before it gets further discredited by scandals such as former minister Raghuraj Pratap Singh’s recent involvement in a police officer’s murder, besides growing lawlessness and communal tensions, and mounting evidence of favouritism, and corruption.

Even if the SP doesn’t withdraw support, the UPA government will remain helplessly dependent on the SP and the BSP. They are crucial to its paper-thin majority. It will have to do a day-to-day balancing act between these two rivals.

The UPA is also looking for an insurance policy if the act fails. It’s trying to neutralise Nitish Kumar by granting ‘special status’ to Bihar. (Hence Mulayam Singh’s overture to Kumar). But this may not help it pass crucial legislations.

Inter-UPA tensions are likely to come to a head on women’s reservations in legislatures and quotas for Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) in promotions in government jobs. The UPA allies are divided on both. The BSP insists on SC-ST quotas, but the SP strongly opposes them. Their clash could bring down the government.

Only two developments can halt the UPA’s downhill trajectory. The first is a set of bold pro-people measures, including expansive initiatives on food security, shelter, healthcare and other social agendas discussed in the last column. This could infuse new energies into society and lend UPA-2 the élan and popular appeal it lacks, thus helping it neutralise its unreliable allies.

The second is a handsome victory for the Congress in Karnataka in the coming assembly election, which boosts the confidence with which the party goes into the next Lok Sabha contest. This could have a particularly reinvigorating impact if it’s followed by a Congress alliance or understanding in Andhra Pradesh with Jaganmohan Reddy’s party, which allows the two to pool their resources in the two regions where they are strong: respectively, Telangana and Rayalaseema-Coastal Andhra.

The UPA seems loath to take the first initiative, hemmed in as it is by its conservative policymakers and business lobbies. It’s under pressure to do just the opposite, supposedly to revive growth. It thus risks losing a big opportunity to do well by the poor who long for a new deal.

The second development could well happen, at least in Karnataka, where the BJP is in disarray and faces opposition from former chief minister and leader-turned-rival BS Yeddyurappa. But to bring about the paradigm shift needed in Andhra Pradesh, UPA-2 will have to show more gumption and tact that it has exhibited so far. Or, coupled with reluctance to take pro-poor steps, its tenure could turn out a wasted second innings.

The writer, a former newspaper editor, is a researcher and peace and human-rights activist based in Delhi. Email: prafulbidwai1@yahoo.co.in