The Hindu Business Line : Mayawati, the new political nucleus

In the last few days we have seen the ugly face of Indian democracy. The spectacle of criminal MPs being wooed for votes, talk of votes bought at fancy prices, allegations and counter-allegations in unparliamentary language, and politicians demanding their pound of flesh will haunt the people for a long time.

Rasheeda Bhagat

As the fate of the United Progressive Alliance Government was discussed in Parliament on Monday with animated debates, and it looked as though the Manmohan Singh government would be able to scrape through, ironically, the man who stood up in the Lok Sabha to move the confidence motion — Prime Minister Manmohan Singh — and the Leader of Opposition who slammed his government for its dismal performance on various fronts — were really not at centre-stage.

Both the leaders had yielded that space to people who were not even present at the debate; two quintessential and shrewd politicians from Uttar Pradesh who have for long mastered the art of poaching, splitting and doing whatever it takes to get the crucial votes that matter during any vote of confidence.

And so, during the last couple of days, the country has watched an amazing political drama unfolding in which the Left parties, led by CPI(M) General-Secretary, Mr Prakash Karat, respectfully stepped aside to yield the leadership position to Ms Mayawati. Small wonder, then, that when the CPI(M) Polit Bureau Member, Mr Sitaram Yechury, when asked to comment on the Bahujan Samaj Party chief Ms Mayawati emerging as the most important leader of the anti-nuclear deal group, said in a lighter vein: “Sab Maya hai”, punning on ‘maya’ as in illusion.

But the numbers she seems to be getting for the Left comrades, as well as their BJP friends (as of now), against the UPA government, are certainly not illusory. On Sunday Ms Mayawati pulled off a coup of sorts when she beamed across TV channels, flanked by the Rashtriya Lok Dal’s Ajit Singh, who promised her that all his three MPs would vote against the deal. Only the other day he was dining with the Congress and promising to back the UPA government on the Indo-US civil nuke deal!

Next, the UP Bahenji pulled out of her hat the father-son duo of Mr Deve Gowda and Mr H. D. Kumaraswamy of the Janata Dal(S), which, the Congress was hoping against hope, would go with the government on the trust motion.

That it was clearly Ms Mayawati’s day was proved when Samajwadi Party MP Shahid Siddiqi appeared along with Bahenji, saying he was with her as he opposed the nuclear deal. Of course, he is a member of Rajya Sabha and his vote will not count in the immediate future, but his quitting the SP will certainly be a body-blow to the party, which depends heavily on its Muslim vote-bank.

The BSP chief, who has already weaned away 4 or 5 Samajwadi Lok Sabha MPs, denied charges of splitting SP or horse-trading by saying coolly: “I have asked those people from SP to first quit the party and then join the BSP. But if they still want to vote against the nuke deal, what do I or the BSP have to do with it?”

Third Front re-emerges

Even as Ms Mayawati firmly donned the role of the leader of the third front, emerging as the nucleus of all anti-Congress forces, apart from the Left leaders, the TDP’s Chandrababu Naidu and the TRC’s Chadrasekhara Rao also called on her; attention has naturally shifted to political alignments beyond the trust vote.

The BJP, of course, tried to negotiate with the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha chief, Shibu Soren, but in vain; the Congress managed to score this lone success, after losing both Mr Ajit Singh and Mr Deve Gowda, to Ms Mayawati’s better negotiating skills.

But as the events of the day unfolded it became clear that leaders such as Mr Ajit Singh or Mr Deve Gowda had been influenced by the spectacular victory Bahenji had notched up in the recent UP assembly elections, where she managed to galvanise both the upper and lower castes into one solid vote block for her BSP to score a landslide victory.

The Samajwadi Party Secretary-General, Mr Amar Singh, on the other hand, was playing his own game in Delhi. Triumphantly, even as Ms Mayawati was parading her victories, he held a press conference on Sunday where he presented before the media a BJP MP from UP, Mr Brij Bhushan Singh, who said he would vote for the UPA. Promising to disclose many more surprises on the voting day, the irrepressible SP leader said despite “Lal (red) joining Lal (Lal Krishna Advani), the UPA is not doomed; it has bloomed.”

Mayawati eyes PM’s chair

As far as Ms Mayawati, camping in Delhi at the moment, is concerned, she is clearly eyeing the chair of the Prime Minister, if not immediately, then in the next election. Going by her latest performance in UP, in the next general election she is likely to take her present tally of 17 Lok Sabha MPs to a number closer to 40. And if the Congress and the BJP do not have sufficient numbers to form/lead the next coalition government, a coalition of parties will come together under the guise of a Third Front and the regional leader with the maximum number of MPs will clearly call the shots. In such an event an Ajit Singh or a Deve Gowda can bargain for top slots in that government; surely this must have been their logic.

Some leaders from the Left and smaller parties have said that if the UPA government loses the trust vote, they would have no objection to propping up Mayawati as Prime Minister immediately. But this can hardly happen because the BJP has made it clear it would not support any such move. As far as the saffron party is concerned, its deliberate strategy seems to be to step back, let Mayawati deal with the ugly task of splitting parties, engineering defections or luring smaller parties with some carrots. At present, she is useful; but once, and if at all, the Manmohan Singh government falls, the BJP will demand fresh polls.

As the Lok Sabha session began, Prime Minister Singh made a short but confident speech — earlier, when he arrived for the Parliament session, he waved the victory signal, gave a thumbs-up to waiting media-persons, flashed smiles all around and exuded the kind of cheer and confidence rarely seen in him in the last four years.

Advani falters on facts

Obviously, the Congress’s trust vote managers have assured him that he will win the vote of confidence and this reflected in the short speech he made as he sought the House’s support for his government. It was the Opposition Leader, Mr L. K. Advani, who faltered on some of his facts (and was later corrected by both Dr Manmohan Singh and Mr Pranab Mukherjee) who appeared less confident of seeing the UPA government fall.

So, even while he blasted the UPA government for not having done enough in four years on issues such as inflation and price rise, farmers’ suicides and terrorism, he mentioned more than once that he was looking not at the immediate outcome of the trust vote but what happened beyond that.

Also, Mr Advani was careful enough to record that the BJP wanted this government to go, not so much for the nuclear deal, even though sections of the Hyde Act undermined India’s sovereignty, and was not opposed to strategic ties with the US, as were members of the Left parties, but on its bad governance and failure to deliver!

His message was simple — even if the UPA government, which he described was “like a patient in the ICU”, perished, the civilian nuclear deal with the US would not. A BJP government of the future was open to “renegotiating” the deal.

At the end of the day two entities have lost in this entire political drama; the image of Left parties, which talked about morality and the politics of principles has been sullied. Mr Karat appears a vengeful politician who will go to any lengths to see this government go; he feels betrayed and does not hide the fact that his ego has been bruised enough for him to seek help from leaders like Ms Mayawati, who has no qualms about splitting parties and engineering defections.

Also, the Left’s Muslim vote-bank in Kerala and West Bengal will not be too happy about the Left helping the BJP by voting with them. The Speaker Mr Somnath Chatterjee’s open defiance of the CPI(M) leader’s wish that he resign and vote along with the party, does not exactly enhance his image.

The even bigger loser is Indian democracy; in the last few days we have seen its ugliest face. Images of criminal and jailed MPs being wooed for their votes, open talk of votes being bought at fancy prices, allegations and counter allegations made, sometimes in language which is certainly unparliamentary, and politicians openly asking for sops, cabinet berths and other favours, will haunt the people for a long, long time.

(Response maybe sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in)

Related Stories:
N-deal: Chidambaram calls for ‘reasoned’ debate
The ugly race for numbers
SPin on the nuke deal

More Stories on : Politics | Rasheeda Bhagat

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Leaving the beaten track

Lifting India's competitive spirit

Seeing the glass as three-fourths full

Mayawati, the new political nucleus

Ten misconceptions about the nuclear deal

Power cut in TN

VRS compensation