Continued from:
SCAMS, POLICY HANDICAP, ILL-INTENT, ELECTORAL MILEAGE - THE POLITICAL JAMBOREE
CALLED INDIA
And
one of it is when would the next general elections be held. Now there are
analyses and analyses. Now there are comments and comments.
Recently,
Mulayam Singh Yadav spoke of early general elections during Kolkata meet of the
Samajwadi Party.
Recently,
Bihar’s chief minister Nitish Kumar said there
was no possibility of early general elections.
Yes,
there are pro- and anti- political views doing the rounds fueling speculative
analysis of the media pundits, with the pro-early election views seeing big spurt today
with Mamata pulling out of the UPA while DMK announcing to participate in
September 20 Bharat Bandh called by the Opposition to protest diesel price
hike, cap on subsidized LPG cylinders and FDI moves.
Let’s
see what can bring the UPA government down before 2014.
It
all depends on UPA itself. Had the main opposition NDA led by the BJP been
unite, it would have toppled the UPA government much earlier given the flurry
of scams, controversies and coalition pangs Manmohan Singh’s government has
generated.
If
it has to be, it is going to be from inside only. Some coalition partners have been
threatening the government regularly of pulling the support or pulling the ministers out.
Mamata,
before pulling out today, has been especially acidic on this front bringing down
many reform initiatives like earlier attempts on retail FDI, pension and insurance sector reform moves and causing price hike rollbacks like infamous rail-fare rollback this year that cost the then Minister of Railways Dinesh Trivedi, a TMC MP, his job. Today, when she announced
to walk out of the UPA after the marathon meeting with her party members on
whether to continue with the UPA government, she was highly scathing in her
remarks. She had warned the government for rollback on FDI move and diesel and
LPG pricing issues.
Other
allies like the DMK and the RLD, too, have threatened the government on various
issues. But unlike Mamata, others have not gone to the extent of clarity (unlike
today) in saying that they intend to pull down their support in totality. And so, we
keep on listening to the threat of pulling the ministers out while continuing
the support from outside.
Clearly,
none of them want an early parliamentary election, (and not even Mamata).
Mamata’s
government has had enough of controversies and she needs times to prove why she
was voted-in before going to the electorate again. Apart from sincere steps, she
also needed face-saving after many U-turns and her recent humiliation by the
Congress party in the presidential polls. She had rejected Pranab Mukherjee'c candidature and had launched a campaign to prove her point before making a U-turn on supporting Pranab. There are multiple consipiracy theories behind this 'Mamata' move but it did one thing with certainty - it dented even more her image in the public perception.
The developments post her joining as
West Bengal chief minister and her autocratic style of functioning have clearly put a question mark on her personal
integrity and humiliate the style of politics that landed her with a landslide
victory in West Bengal assembly elections. She needs time more than the central government's funding to come out of the mess she herself has created.
DMK
would like to see the anti-incumbency factor built against Jayalalitha before
it goes to the electorate and certainly would not like to opt for an early
election. Though DMK has said to participate in the September 20 Bharat Bandh
of the opposition parties, it cannot be more than lip service – opposing the
government accusing it of anti-people policies while supporting it to survive politically.
After all, it is basically about the vested political interest of survival in
the office or revival to the office. Many prominent DMK leaders are facing
corruption charges and are under CBI probe. And CBI is under the direct control of
the PMO.
Anti-incumbency
and corruption are the factors that are going to cost dearly to the NCP-Congress
alliance in the next election and NCP would want to spend as much time in
office as possible.
The
UPA has current strength of 254 members minus Mamata’s TMC members in the Lok
Sabha, 18 less from the simple majority figure of 272. SP (22), BSP (21), RJD (4) and JDS (3) form the outside support of 50 members, enough to make for Manmohan’s
days in the office.
While
RJD doesn’t matter here as Nitish is expected to win Bihar
back comfortably and it's count too low like the JDS, it comes to the SP and the BSP then. If any of them pulls
back the support, the government would be on a thin line of survival as any
errant coalition partner would be able to bring the government down.
But
even if Mulayam is looking to crave for an early general election intending to cash the public support that gave a thumping victory to his party in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections this March, the BSP
would not like to have it. Initial days of Akhilesh Yadav’s government have
been a tale of an increased crime graph, administration’s excesses and ministers’
manipulations, very typical of an SP government. Mayawati would like to have these
factors play out over a larger time-span to build a significant anti-incumbency
base before she could go back to the Uttar Pradesh electorate and the time till
2014 elections can do it.
Also,
the centre has been effectively using the CBI investigations hunter against the
corruption tainted top SP and BSP leaders to toe them in the line.
So
even if Ram Gopal Yadav says the SP would not join the government and SP’s
support to the centre cannot be taken for granted, it can be said there is no
immediate danger to Manmohan’s boat as BSP would like to keep the UPA's journey on, and that punctures any SP thinking that once the UPA government is down, there would be no threat of the CBI hunter.
And
even Mamata has kept the room open for further negotiations as her ministers are to
pull out of the government on Friday only. (Why not today only?)
The
Congress party is ready to open the channel of negotiation as evident from Janardan
Dwivedi’s statement. He said, "We have always considered Trinamool
Congress our valuable ally. Even after all that Mamata Banerjee has said, we
still consider her our valuable ally till a final result comes out."
So
it means Manmohan’s strategists would have to burn the midnight oil in meeting
the fund demands of TMC and SP if, indeed, the backroom channels operate to
diffuse the current crisis. And that might easily kill the spirit of reforms
that Manmohan is looking to bank on as the demand of these two states run in
over Rs 1 Lakh crore of funds.
But
having said all this, there can be kept a little room for that political
uncertainty like the DMK spewing over Congress’ maltreatment of its interests, especially on the issue of Tamil politics in Srilankan context.
The
political circus in India
is turning yet another green leaf in its questionable tradition of valueless
politics.
To
continue..
©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/