Which, if you go back to the heady days of May-June 2009, needn’t have come to this sorry pass. Why did it, is a question the presiding triumvirate in the establishment can best answer; hacks like me can at best read the portents and offer opinions. If Verdict 2004 was a surprise one, so was Choice 2004. Dr Singh, pulled out of relative obscurity and promoted to the top job in the country not for any stellar administrative quality but solely for his unflinching loyalty to the Family, had every reason to be beholden for the same. But Verdict 2009 was different. Was the Congress’s and UPA’s improved showing in the hustings solely due to the Family’s charisma, or did the administration provided and policies pursued by the prime minister – no doubt with a nod from his political boss – play a role in the victory? When you win unexpectedly for the first time, you can be magnanimous in sharing the credit. But a re-election is a different affair; the first could be the result of a negative vote against the existing regime. The second is a clear endorsement and a positive vote. Which is why the Indian voter has been so miserly about voting in the incumbent, because there is so little around him for him to be positive about. The crisis in the UPA II goes back to its inception, Verdict 2009. And it will end only when this issue – whose victory was it, the party’s or the government’s? — is settled. Tied to this question is the prime ministership of In a democracy there will always be friction between the government and the ruling party and the bosses are expected to paper over the differences, smoothe things out. When Indira Gandhi fashioned her own version of the Congress party from the one that led to If she who grew up in the lap of the Founding Fathers that lived and breathed democracy could shrink the tradition to personal hagiography, it hasn’t been a difficult transformation for her followers. Sonia Gandhi’s Congress party is caught in this dilemma. It believes that she who led the party to electoral triumph should also be the prime minister. If not, one of her children. Sensing disquiet over her ascension to the top job, she has chosen to rule by proxy. But the crisis for the Congress party is that neither does her son Rahul, who has been leading a party revival campaign, show any inclination to replace the incumbent prime minister. In effect, how this percolates down to the rank and file is that there is a disconnect between the party’s programmes and the government’s, because they are led by two different people. In effect, how this percolates down to the public is that there is a governance paralysis, manifesting itself in different ways – from inability to control inflation to drift in economy to indecisiveness on policy matters to unwillingness to curb corruption. Popular disenchantment from all this could still have been kept under check but for humongous corruption which, if not in truth then at least in public perception has left hardly anyone untouched in the Union Cabinet. Corollary flowing from this: Of what use is an honest prime minister who cannot do anything about his corrupt ministers? Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is not a political animal – which is why he does not fight the Lok Sabha elections. Unfortunately for him, the prime ministership of And, it seems under UPA II, political solutions are not the Congress party bosses’ forte either. The popular disenchantment against UPA II, which denied it its customary honeymoon period with the voters, could have been better and easily handled but wasn’t. Drowned in their own smugness about winning a re-election, and beguiled by the disarray in its principal opposition the Bharatiya Janata Party, both the Congress party and the government slept, unaware of the ground shifting under their feet. It’s happened before in this ancient land. The British didn’t take the challenge of a ‘half-naked fakir’ seriously till it was too late. The politically astute Indira Gandhi, blinded by maternal love, saw in the Jayaprakash Narayan whirlwind a benign summer breeze. And Anna Hazare, whose worldview extends to all of a remote village in Faced with a challenge to their existence, one would expect the government and party to act as one. But the disconnect between the two shows no sign of ending. The government thinks it can deflect the challenge by diversionary tactics. So you have a political hot potato decision like foreign direct investment in retail trade taken when Parliament is in session, a decision which may benefit the government but not the party which stayed put in the barracks during the battle over it. As the FDI in retail trade showed, the government finds not just the Opposition ranged against it, not just its own party – but also its allies. Dr Manmohan Singh is thus besieged on all sides. His biggest misstep has been on FDI in retail. To break the perception that his government was paralysed, he chose an explosive issue – just as he did in his first term with the India-United States nuclear deal. As then, he expected to come out guns blazing in Parliament once again. Unfortunately for him, the script didn’t play out that way. If he was a Bollywood buff – which he isn’t – he would know that sequels work only in films, not in life – and certainly not in politics. Retreat 2011 has finally settled the question over Verdict 2011. If there are doubts still lingering in the mind of the prime minister, he should make way for someone more in tune with his party boss.
When governments feel the ground shifting under their feet, they resort to diversionary tactics. Dr Manmohan Singh’s government is faced with a groundswell against it – and not all of it is online. In fact, the vituperation against it online – which has forced Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal to advocate curbs on it – is but a reflection of the popular disenchantment with the United Progressive Alliance II.
Posts Tagged ‘Congress’
Dr Singh: What next?
December 8th, 2011Will the real prime minister please stand up?
May 24th, 2010One year ago, when the second edition of the United Progressive Alliance came to power, one felt that we would be seeing a different government. There was unanimity among various groups that the first one was a holding operation; trammelled by its lack of parliamentary numbers and a fire-breathing Left, it stumbled through five years of staying in office without really doing much.
Apart from the prime minister’s pet project, the nuclear deal with the
But throughout those five years an impression was created, and the Left did little to correct it, that the UPA government wasn’t being given breathing space to do the things it really wanted to. Perhaps the voters too bought the argument last year, since Verdict 2009 cut the Left down apart from boosting the Congress’s numbers.
A year on, after it’s clear that the Left was only UPA I’s whipping boy. A year on, despite getting rid of Prakash Karat and his band of fiery men, the UPA has been as sluggish as it was in its first term. So was the known devil (Left) better than the unknown angels (Mayawati, Mulayam and Mamta)? The only hint came at the prime minister’s press conference today where, when asked if he missed the Left parties’ support, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said, “If wishes were horses beggars would ride.”
For those of us who resented the pressure the Left brought to bear on UPA I, it is clear in retrospect — as it is no doubt clear to the prime minister — that the Left was not in it to strike deals or cut corners. They approached decisions through the prism of principle and policy, there was no surprise about it. With the new bunch of friends the UPA has acquired, it is all about politics, pulls and pressures.
What it has meant to governance is to project an image that the centre cannot hold. That the prime minister is not in control (which is worse if you realise many think that the remote control to the government anyway lay in 10 Janpath).
The prime minister’s cabinet thus resembles a daycare centre where children are running riot, with the babysitter unable to maintain order.
The Union Cabinet posts are filled not on merit but based on allies’ intransigence. So a Muthuvel Karunanidhi is able to cock a snook at the prime minister, at the Congress party and its president Sonia Gandhi and retain a minister who caused pecuniary loss to the nation. We pilloried a prime minister for a scam worth a niggardly Rs 64 crore; but a mere minister who caused thousands of crores to vanish sits pretty.
Naturally when the prime minister opens his mouth about poverty alleviation in his second press conference in
Blame some of the last few incumbents for the erosion in its image, but the prime ministership of
Even if you put it down to personal style — I cannot be like my boss nor he like me, I know — the prime minister has not convinced that his style works.
It is not just that he has been unable to either gag his ministers who clearly believe words speak louder than action or rein in those who think they are not accountable to anyone for their actions. The prime minister’s worst achievement is that in the one year of his second government, he has not sent out the message that he means business.
And this time there’s no pesky Left around to pin the blame on.
What can be worse for a nation suffering the ill-effects of untrammelled inflation than having a celebrated economist at the helm who is unable to control it? You can draw two inferences from this failure. One is that the economist in him doesn’t know how to control prices. The other, less charitable, inference is that he doesn’t think it is cause enough to worry; in other words, Marie Antoinette like, he just doesn’t care.
You can tug at the leash to join the global high table. You can let out a collective gasp that
Alas, but of what use is any of it when our internal affairs is in a shambles!
If UPA I had no clue about warding off jihadi attacks, UPA II has no clue about preventing Maoist attacks. Terror earlier came wrapped in a green flag; today it comes covered in a red flag. Seeing how effete the government is in tackling their threat, it is a question of time before the Naxalites move out of the red corridor and into our cities and towns. Will the government’s wait for a strategy cost the nation dear?
After so much brouhaha over the women’s reservation bill, there’s been no squeak out of the government on its fate. Will its structure change, as the allies have been demanding? Considering how successful the latter have been in getting the government to include caste as a factor in the ongoing census, the signs are clear. This government is malleable on most issues.
What was also clear, thanks to today’s press conference, is that prime minister doesn’t have all the answers. Either he doesn’t have all the facts at his disposal, or you can contact the PMO.
But don’t blame me, I didn’t vote for this government!
