The Hindu Business Line : Sticking to guns

MR P. A. SANGMA, one of the most effective and affable Lok Sabha Speakers India has seen after Independence, has all but left the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). Only the last rites remain. Mr Sharad Pawar and Mr Sangma turned their backs on the Congress not because of any difference with its policies, but solely in protest against the projection by that party of a person of foreign origin as a possible future Prime Minister.

All that has happened in the context of the imminent prospect of the country going to the hustings is that the Congress President, Ms Sonia Gandhi, has thrown the whole decision on the choice of Prime Minister into the lap of the so-called secular alliance that she is trying to forge as an alternative to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). All the waffling by the Congress about the people deciding who the Prime Minister should or would be cannot hide the fact that the raison d'etre of the formation of the NCP is not, and can never be expected to be, acceptable to it. In this background, it was unprincipled on the part of Mr Sharad Pawar even to entertain the thought of joining a Congress-led alliance. May be, in politics, there are no permanent friends or permanent enemies, but it does not certainly mean that it should be devoid of permanent values.

As of now, Mr Sangma's reasoning that the Congress-led alliance has no other go than to turn to Ms Gandhi as its choice for the top slot, and that joining that alliance means giving up all that NCP has stood for, seems well-founded. From this viewpoint, the stand he has taken to quit NCP is fully justified and does him credit.

Of course, whether he should throw in his lot with the NDA which, in effect, is BJP-driven, is quite another matter on which there could be different views. Although India's electoral contests are nominally among parties, in reality, they revolve around personalities. In the coming Parliamentary election too, the fortunes of the two main alliances that are emerging will be centred on the leaders heading them, who would be viewed as the prospective PMs. There is no doubt who the PM would be were the BJP-led alliance to win.

The BJP is pulling all stops to make an invincible Colossus of Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee based on his undeniable contribution to the high stature the nation enjoys today. The credibility of the rival alliance is bound to suffer unless it puts up a person to match the towering personality of Mr Vajpayee.

The electorate cannot be asked to vote for an amorphous mass without knowing beforehand the credentials of the person likely to occupy the top slot.

It is in the vital interest of the Congress-led alliance to take the people into confidence without being devious about it.