The Hindu Business Line : Political gameplan

The Union Budget for 2008-09 has come and gone, and things have once again settled down. The market has returned to its old ways, the politicians are at each other’s throats once again, and India Inc is, as the case may be, extolling the virtues of the Finance Minister’s clearheadedness or blaming his obfuscation of the real requirements of the economy at this juncture.

For the average citizen, the focus of all discussion is the tax relief that he can expect from the Budget, which is actually leaving a good taste in the mouth. When this happens before the season of elections gets under way as the year progresses, it is time to sit back and marvel at the strategic political planning that has gone into the making of the Budget document — for which of course the Finance Ministry has merely been the instrument and not the initiator.

The price to pay

The obvious question that one should ask is the economic price the nation will have to pay to attain the political objective in the run-up to the polls. The “beauty” of the Budget lies precisely in the fact that the only semblance of a “price” that can be discerned at the moment is the massive loan-waiver for indebted farmers (now said to be in excess of Rs 60,000 crore), the specific implementation channels of which are still shrouded in the mists of uncertainty and speculation.

The Finance Minister has refused to shed any focussed light on the subject as yet, having taken recourse to the stratagem of generalisation when he said the other day that the “homework” had been done. Of course, the scheme has been thought out carefully because, after all, someone, somewhere has to foot the bill to the banks, and the nation’s economic managers cannot simply turn a blind eye to the modus operandi of such a scheme when announcing it. But, maybe, this is not the right time to divulge the details because someone has to foot the bill, which is an unhappy thought in a time of contrived general adulation and celebration.

This apart, for the Congress-led UPA Government at least, this is the time to move on with its “gameplan”, which has been “kick-started” by the Finance Minister’s “jai kisan” Budget. This is not the time to foray sideways and throw light on the implementation of the scheme or to grapple with major ethical issues such as the perceived penalisation of farmers who have made it a point to repay loans taken from the organised financial sector on time. We all remember the similar problems associated with the scheme in the 1990s to help tax-defaulters regularise the economic crime of income concealment at the expense of law-abiding taxpayers, who were left to suck their thumbs, in a manner of speaking.

Electoral battle

Certainly, to the top leadership of the Congress party, this is an important issue of fair governance, but one should not miss the wood for the trees, the wood today being the electoral battle looming ahead. Indeed, the next step in the “gameplan” has already been initiated, namely, the move to get the IAEA draft on the special status for India accepted by the UPA partners, and perhaps also in the Lok Sabha.

Things will have to be done as quickly as possible, that is, within such time as the sweet taste of the Budget lingers in the electorate’s mouth, the next step probably being a dissolution of the Lok Sabha — and the formation of the next Congress-led coalition Government.

RANABIR RAY CHOUDHURY

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