Power & Politics / Mail Today, June 29, 2009

THERE couldn’t be two political parties so unlike each other as the BJP and the CPI( M), yet from the goings on within both this past month, it would appear they are twins who emerged out of the same womb.

Both were disciplined, cadre based parties where once upon a time the writ from the top ran all the way down. But post the 2009 electoral drubbing, both appear to be in turmoil, riven by dissent and infighting.

The mood of despair that immediately followed the electoral debacle has turned into one of self destruction. LK Advani’s jibe about Manmohan Singh being the “ weakest ever” would suit Prakash Karat better — he is the weakest General Secretary that the CPI( M) has ever had.

Sitaram Yechury never forgoes an opportunity to take a swipe at him; Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee openly defies him; Pinarayi Vijayan, the first ever Politburo member to be charged in a corruption case, dares Karat to take action against him and VS Achuthanandan flouts party discipline on a daily basis and the General Secretary conveniently looks the other way and pretends he saw nothing, heard nothing.

Things are not very different over at the BJP where a bunch of drawing room Field Marshals have brought the party to its lowest point in nearly two decades. Its younger generation leaders are going for each other’s jugular but like the apparatchiks at AKG Bhavan, the senior- most leader has gone on a holiday, presumably hoping that the problem would vanish on its own by the time he returns. It was perhaps just a coincidence, that on the very day that the CPI( M) Politburo met in New Delhi for the first time after the elections to discuss the poll rout, the BJP’s National Council also met in the capital.

The agenda was the same — to discuss the electoral rout. But in both parties, the top leadership was scared of facing the uncomfortable truth and so decided to postpone the problem and agreed to meet again in the first week of July. Comrades and the right wingers alike have taken advantage of the long interval to beat Delhi’s scorching heat and fly off to London, Rome, Paris and other summer destinations. Once back, I can wage a bet that unlike Rahul Gandhi, they will not be embarking on Discover India tours. You are more likely to see them waxing eloquent on TV shows or flaunting their newly acquired Swiss watches at Page 3 parties.
The CPI( M) politburo will meet again in the first week of July and coincidentally, during the same weekend, the BJP National Executive is also scheduled to meet, as is the RSS Prathinidhi Sabha whose meeting is expected to review the organisation’s ties with the BJP. Karat: Weak I suspect this will be the only one where any meaningful discussion will take place. The top leaderships of the CPI( M) and the BJP will disagree on everything except finding fresh excuses to agree to meet another day.

Unfortunately, the problems have reached a stage where they cannot be pushed under the carpet for much longer. Now that the exhausting election season has passed, it is time they pondered over the leadership — or lack of it — in their parties. In both parties, the leaders should ideally step down before the next fateful election season starts. That may be the last chance.

Minimum PM /Power & Politics/ Mail Today-June 23,2008

Sometime in August last, Manmohan Singh made one of the most ill- timed, ill- advised statements he has ever made as Prime Minister. “If they (the Left) want to withdraw support, so be it” he said in arare interview to a Kolkata newspaper. Since then, the UPA government has been living on daily wages. Manmohan considers the nuclear deal critical to his governance paradigm. With his economy managers unable to contain inflation, the Left obstructing his reforms agenda and his ministerial team lacking in substance, the deal, he hoped, would at least ensure his place in history. But he sized up Prakash Karat wrong. Those who have dealt with Karat will tell you that compromises don’t come naturally to him, draw him out for aduel and Karat transforms into aformidable fighter. In an earlier column, Ihad written about what has now become regular feature in this regime –the meeting of the UPA- Left coordination committee on the nuke deal. The two sides get together every now and then and decide to do nothing more than meet again in afew month’s time. Last Wednesday, they were to meet for the ninth time but there were afew twists, so they decided to meet aweek later. But ominously, by late evening, TV channels reported that Manmohan had threatened to quit if the deal, whose deadline is staring his government in the face, is not done. Success has many fathers and failure none. The deal is as good as dead and the Congress Party, instead of rallying around the good doctor is busy preparing a charge- sheet against him for bringing the party to such apass in an election year. But if blame were to be apportioned, the party leadership should split it in equal measure. Aseries of flaws accompanied what is perhaps the most contentious bilateral agreement India has ever signed. The Congress leadership failed to build apolitical consensus around the deal. The media hype and active involvement of corporate houses and US lobbyists in pursuing the deal put so much pressure on the political system, it hardened opposition to it. Some Opposition leaders were shocked to hear from American interlocutors who came to India to convince them about the deal that the Congress party had assured them of support of a majority of the political parties while the reality is they did not even try. It could have activated senior party to reach out to the NDA to build apolitical consensus on the matter which would have isolated the Left, but didn’t. The managers bungled. There is amoral to this story. Ahead of government can lead from the front only if he has the political mandate and the authority that goes with it. Manmohan didn’t have either, yet did what he thought was right. He made promises but couldn’t deliver. In politics, you seldom get asecond chance. The weekend saw his miseries pile up. South Block keeps mum on anews report which says India has been sitting on massive reserves of uranium enough to feed our energy requirements for 40 years. It’s astory that knocks the bottom out of Manmohan’s case that the country needs foreign uranium for energy. Worse, with inflation at 11+, a13- year high, the credibility of the economist in Manmohan stands eroded. And so the beginning of the end. Minimum Karat: Formidable