The Hindu Business Line : SPin on the nuke deal

With the Samajwadi Party not only supporting the nuclear deal but also agreeing to vote in favour of the UPA Government, in case there is a floor test in Parliament, the Congress and its allies in the UPA can at last breathe easy. From the Left’s point of view, with the SP on board, the UPA Government will survive its full term; so, by withdrawing support, it will only earn the label of being a ‘destroyer’, says RASHEEDA BHAGAT.

Speaking in support…The Samajwadi Party President, Mr Mulayam Singh (left), and the General Secretary, Mr Amar Singh.

The general rule of thumb is that those who stay in glass houses should not throw stones. But try telling this to our politicians! All hell has broken loose following the Congress successfully roping in the Samajwadi Party to not only support the Indo-US civil nuclear deal but also agree to vote in favour of the United Progressive Alliance Government in case there is a floor test in Parliament.

Opposition leader in Lok Sabha and the BJP hopeful for the prime minister’s job in the next Lok Sabha poll, Mr L. K. Advani, was in such great hurry to move towards this ambition, that even before the Left parties could withdraw support to the UPA Government, he was demanding such a floor test a few days ago.

The SP made a show of satisfying itself that the nuke deal was indeed in the nation’s interest; after a long session with the former President, Dr A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, Mr Mulayam Singh and company pledged support to the UPA.

An enraged Mr Advani fumed that the Government had been “reduced to a charade” and lost the “moral legitimacy” to rule. Just to survive it was ready to trade off anything…

Others in the UNPA, which has been such a non-starter in the first place (remember, how the AIADMK General Secretary, Ms Jayalalithaa, got her legislators to queue up and vote for the BJP Presidential candidate, Mr Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, making a mockery of her presence in the “secular” UNPA?), such as Mr Om Prakash Chautala, reminded the SP leadership how it had been “insulted” by the Congress in the past and wondered why it was asking for more of the same.

The former BJP chief, Mr Venkaiah Naidu, of course turned the glass houses and stones adage on its head when he scorned the UPA for moving from one “unholy alliance (Left) to another unholy alliance” (SP). So how would the BJP define its alliance with the votary of ‘secularism’, Mr Deve Gowda’s Janata Dal in Karnataka, where the rug was pulled from under its feet when it was time for the BJP chief minister to rule? Or the alliance with Ms Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party, where the UP’s bahenji did the same to the saffron party?

What is worse, the party that touts virtues such as ‘probity in politics’, value-based politics etc, now appears in an unholy hurry to mend fences with the BSP. An alliance between the Congress and the SP in the next Lok Sabha polls, that will be the outcome of the SP’s support of the nuke deal, will push the BJP into a corner, notwithstanding any glorious findings on an internal poll it has recently done in UP.

Uneasy marriage

For the SP, of course, which was so blatantly snubbed by the Congress(I) chief, Ms Sonia Gandhi barely four years ago, it has not been an easy decision to make.

While the party General Secretary, Mr Amar Singh, is bravely mouthing the “communalism vs secularism” mantra for saving the UPA Government, if and when the Left withdraws support, for the SP, it is its present uncomfortable position on home turf in UP that has compelled its uneasy marriage with the Congress-led UPA.

And Mr Singh was honest enough to admit that for him it was not only communalism vs secularism, or communalism vs imperialism (US), but also countering the BJP and BSP.

The SP leadership now has to take on umpteen questions such as how Ms Gandhi had forced its Rajya Sabha MP, Ms Jaya Bachchan, to step down on the office-for-profit issue. That on the same issue Ms Gandhi too lost her seat in Lok Sabha is, of course, another story.

Also, what is the guarantee that the Congress will not ditch the SP once again after its purpose has been served? What are the Bachchans, who Mr Amar Singh considers family, saying about this deal? How will the Muslim support base react to its decision?

Anti-Bush, but not anti-national

The last question brings us to the ridiculous surmise that as the US President, Mr George W. Bush is “anti-Muslim”, Indian Muslims as a bloc are opposed to the nuke deal. Just a few self-serving ulemas calling upon the UP Chief Minister, Ms Mayawati, to hail her opposition to the nuke deal, or vociferous, angry Muslims in Mumbai, Kashmir or elsewhere waving placards against the deal, does not mean that all Indian Muslims are against this deal.

They should be credited with enough intelligence to try and understand the agreements and whether it entails blindly kowtowing the US line, loss of our sovereignty, etc.

An anti-Bush sentiment does not make the country that he presides over an untouchable.

Soon he will be history, and a Barack Obama in the White House might yet manage to steer the country away from the path of unjustified wars against nations (Afghanistan, Iraq) or jingoism threatening even more attacks (Iran), and chip away at the anti-American sentiment prevalent in many parts of the world.

It was not the done thing for the CPI(M) Politburo member and CITU chief, Mr M. K. Pandhe, to earlier warn the SP that by supporting the nuke deal and bailing out the UPA government, it risked losing its Muslim support base.

Left divided?

All eyes will now be on the Left; will the deadline of July 7 set by its leaders for announcing withdrawal of support to the UPA Government hold? The CPI(M) General Secretary, Mr Prakash Karat, has made this an issue of “ideology and principles”, but fissures have appeared within his own party over the issue of withdrawing support, particularly in its West Bengal unit.

Nandigram has cast a gloomy shadow over the party that has ruled the State for three decades; the results of the civic polls are an indicator of this. West Bengal has 35 of the Left parties’ 59 MPs in the Lok Sabha and there is apprehension among the CPI(M) leadership that withdrawing support at this juncture would be an act of political adventurism. The party does not want to be seen by its electorate as a “wrecker of government”. Mr Jyoti Basu, in particular, as well as the West Bengal Chief Minister, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, are reportedly in favour of going slow on the issue of withdrawing support.

Their argument is that now with the SP on board, anyway the UPA Government will survive its full term, so by withdrawing support, the Left will earn the label of being a “destroyer” and also lose whatever clout it has in Delhi as an ally of the government. With the fallout from the Nandigram events threatening to end the Left’s three-decade rule in West Bengal, and the mess that the Left Front faces in Kerala, it is felt this is hardly the time to risk a harsh political fallout from any such decision.

While for the BJP, all these developments must be frustrating, for the time being the Congress and its allies in the UPA, none of whom wants an early election, will breathe easy. But the SP support will come at a price; for the time being, it has not asked for any Cabinet berths, hauled the UPA Government over the coals for the galloping inflation and criticised a couple of its ministers. But the biggest price it will extract will be at the time of elections, reducing the Congress presence even further in UP. But for the time being, the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, will have his way, and about time too. One only hopes he had put his foot down on this and other issues much earlier. Anyway, even at this late-stage, the show of determination adds stature to the image of the man widely considered to be too decent to play a pivotal role in the cesspool of Indian politics.

(Response may be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in)

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