Admitting that “some compromises” have to be made in managing a coalition, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said that his government will bring the wrongdoers in scams to book, but ruled out quitting from his post. In his opening remarks Dr Singh said, “An impression has gone around that we are a scam driven country.” He added “This is weakening the self confidence of the people of India, and denting the image of the country. We owe it to our country that at least in dealing with facts, we should be as objective as possible.”
“I wish to assure the country as a whole that our government is dead serious about bringing to book all wrongdoers regardless of the position they occupy,” he said. less of the position they occupy,” he said.He asserted that his government was not lame duck nor was he a lame duck Prime Minister and it was a functioning government that would go after the scamsters.
“I have never felt like quitting, I will stay the course,” the Prime Minister told television editors and bureau chiefs at a media interaction at 7 Race Course Road, his official residence. “I never felt like resigning because I had a job to do,” Manmohan Singh said in response to a question on whether he felt like quitting over the many allegations of corruption against his government. (Read: Never felt like quitting as I have a job to do, says PM) “In a coalition government, there is a coalition dharma,” he stated. Manmohan Singh said he was not afraid of appearing before any committee, including a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC). There is, he said, an “entirely wrong impression that I was blocking the agreement on a JPC. I have always said my conduct should be, like Caesar’s wife, above suspicion”.
During the 70-minute interaction, the Prime Minister fielded a wide range of questions covering mainly issues of corruption including the ISRO’s deal on S band spectrum, governance deficit, economy and Parliament stand off. “I don’t deny that we need to improve quality of governance, ” said the Prime Minister, admitting, ” I don’t say I have never made any mistake. But I am not that big a culprit as being made out to be.” To a question what was his biggest regret in UPA-II, Singh said that “these irregularities have happened. They should not have happened. I am not very happy about these developments”.
– OE News Bureau
CORRUPTION CASES SPIRAL, LEADING TO MORE POLICY PARALYSIS
The prime minister is facing a slew of corruption scandals, including accusations that his Congress party-led government lost up to $39 billion after telecom licences were sold to companies at rock-bottom prices in return for kickbacks.There could be a repeat of 1989, when Congress lost a general election due to the Bofors scandal over gun contracts involving close associates of then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi who were accused of taking bribes.
Given that a general election is not due until 2014, Singh may have hoped the current scandals would ebb. But an aggressive media, an assertive Supreme Court and an opposition tasting political blood means momentum into probes has grown.More graft probes could also increase tensions between the Congress Party and its regional DMK ally, accused by federal police of being linked to the telecoms scam.
The government appears close to agreeing to a parliamentary probe in return for the opposition allowing the parliamentary budget session to operate unhindered from late February.That probe could see months, even years, of ministers being called to give evidence, overshadowing Singh’s second term.That could halt any reform bills, including land acquisition reform, which attempts to reconcile the interests of farmers and corporate India in a country where tussles over ownership can scupper billion-dollar project.
That may compound investor problems in India. Foreign direct investment has fallen for three consecutive years, from 2.9 per- cent of GDP in 2008/09 to around 1.8 percent of GDP in 2010/11. Some of this has to do with the global economic slow- down, but regulatory uncertainty is also a factor.
The Congress Party is unlikely to move faster on long-pending economic reforms such as opening up supermarket or financial sectors to foreign investors. The government may introduce changes to the telecoms sector, such as giving more muscle to the telecoms regulator.
If those scandals were not bad enough, the Congress government faces a host of state elections this year that will take the political temperature of an electorate ahead of the 2014 general election.These include West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, two crucial states that help give Congress a majority in parliament. If Congress does badly in these elections, it could convince coalition partners it is time to jump ship or at least distance them- selves from the government, meaning further policy paralysis.Congress has a rough 18 seat majority in parliament. If the ruling Congress ally, the DMK, loses the Tamil Nadu election, it saps strength from the coalition.
Many commentators expect a more populist budget on Feb 28, to give the government some chance of doing well in the elections. But more spending on Congress’s main social welfare programmes would come amid high inflation and signs of fiscal strains. That could mean the government failing to deal with fuel subsidies, more cash for food programs as well as education and health. The government bases its plans on jumps in tax collections on high economic growth.
Unlikely, but possible. The 78-year-old Singh is widely seen as an honest elder statesman who plays second fiddle to Congress head Sonia Gandhi, the real power behind the throne. But the scandals may have taken a heavy toll on the prime minister, concerned his legacy is transforming from one of being the founders of India’s economic boom to someone who did nothing to stop corruption or policy paralysis.
Singh, who underwent a second heart operation in 2009, could step down some time before the 2014 election to make way for a successor. Sonia Gandhi could also push him out. While family scion Rahul Gandhi is seen as prime minister in waiting, he is still young and has rejected ministerial jobs in Singh’s government – instead focusing on the youth wing of the Congress Party. Some say he is too inexperienced to run India.That may mean Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee or Defence Minister A.K. Antony could become prime minister, perhaps on an interim basis.
It may be too early to count out the Congress Party, especially with three years to the next general election. It is still the biggest national party and has the Gandhi family name and an extensive network of political influence.
One thing that could bolster the government this year would be a good performance in state elections and there are signs the party or its regional coalition allies could do well, mainly because it is fighting some unpopular incumbents.Congress is likely to do well in Assam, Kerala and West Bengal states. The latter state election could see the end of the world’s longest ruling democratically elected communist government. The opposition is Trinamool Congress, a Congress ally.It could do well in Tamil Nadu, where its regional DMK ally is under pressure from the opposition but still may win.Congress can also spend more money on social welfare schemes, such as the rural employment scheme that is seen as helping the party win re-election in 2004. It could also start new schemes such as one giving cheap food grains to the poor. The government agreeing to a joint parliamentary probe may also take the wind out of the opposition’s sails.”If the elections come off reasonably well and the BJP is robbed of an issue, the Congress can cover some ground. But it has to work quickly. Fast track investigations, convictions that will send out a positive mes- sage,” said political analyst Amulya Ganguli.
One of the biggest advantages for the government may be the poor quality of the opposition, led by the Hindu nationaist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).While the party has been vocal in its condemnation of corruption, it straddles uneasily between its modern focus and grassroots Hindu nationalism. A failed march by the BJP to place an Indian flag in disputed Kashmir, for example, was widely seen as a political mistake that alienated middle class voters.Remarks by former BJP telecoms minister Arun Shourie on Monday, which accused senior party leaders Arun Jaitleyand Sushma Swaraj of not doing enough to make publicize the scandal, exposed further cracks in the opposition.The BJP also has its own corruption scandals to tackle in the southern state of Karnataka, where the party is in pow-er. And some of its leaders, like Narendra Modi, chief minister of Gujarat state, are also highly controversial for their alleged role in fomenting religious violence against Muslims.
The prime minister is facing a slew of corruption scandals, including accusations that his Congress party led government lost up to $39 billion after telecom licenses were sold to companies at rock-bottom prices in return for kickbacks.There could be a repeat of 1989, when Congress lost a general election due to the Bofors scandal over gun contracts involving close associates of then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi who were accused of taking bribes.
Given that a general election is not due until 2014, Singh may have hoped the current scandals would ebb. But an aggressive media, an assertive Supreme Court and an opposition tasting political blood means momentum into probes has grown.More graft probes could also increase tensions between the Congress Party and its regional DMK ally, accused by federal police of being linked to the telecom scam.
The government appears close to agreeing to a parliamentary probe in return for the opposition allowing the parliamentary budget session to operate unhindered from late February.That probe could see months, even years, of ministers being called to give evidence, overshadowing Singh’s second term.That could halt any reform bills, including land acquisition reform, which attempts to reconcile the interests of farmers and corporate India in a country where tussles over ownership can scupper billion-dollar project.
That may compound investor problems in India. Foreign direct investment has fallen for three consecutive years, from 2.9 percent of GDP in 2008/09 to around 1.8 percent of GDP in 2010/11. Some of this has to do with the global economic slow- down, but regulatory uncertainty is also a factor. The Congress Party is unlikely to move faster on long pending economic reforms such as opening up supermarket or financial sectors to foreign investors. The government may introduce changes to the telecom sector, such as giving more muscle to the telecom regulator.
If those scandals were not bad enough, the Congress government faces a host of state elections this year that will take the political temperature of an electorate ahead of the 2014 general election.These include West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, two crucial states that help give Congress a majority in parliament.
If Congress does badly in these elections, it could convince coalition partners it is time to jump ship or at least distance them- selves from the government, meaning further policy paralysis.Congress has a rough 18 seat majority in parliament. If the ruling Congress ally, the DMK, loses the Tamil Nadu election, it saps strength from the coalition. Many commentators expect a more populist budget on Feb 28, to give the government some chance of doing well in the elections. But more spending on Congress’s main social welfare programs would come amid high inflation and signs of fiscal strains. That could mean the government failing to deal with fuel subsidies, more cash for food programs as well as education and health. The government bases its plans on jumps in tax collections on high economic growth.
Unlikely, but possible. The 78-year old Singh is widely seen as an honest elder statesman who plays second fiddle to Congress head Sonia Gandhi, the real power behind the throne. But the scandals may have taken a heavy toll on the prime minister, concerned his legacy is transforming from one of being the founders of India’s economic boom to someone who did nothing to stop corruption or policy paralysis.
Singh, who underwent a second heart operation in 2009, could step down some time before the 2014 election to make way for a successor. Sonia Gandhi could also push him out. While family scion Rahul Gandhi is seen as prime minister in waiting, he is still young and has rejected ministerial jobs in Singh’s government instead focusing on the youth wing of the Congress Party. Some say he is too inexperienced to run India.That may mean Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee or Defense Minister A.K. Antony could become prime minister, perhaps on an interim basis.
It may be too early to count out the Congress Party, especially with three years to the next general election. It is still the biggest national party and has the Gandhi family name and an extensive network of political influence. One thing that could bolster the government this year would be a good performance in state elections and there are signs the party or its regional coalition allies could do well, mainly because it is fighting some unpopular incumbents.
Congress is likely to do well in Assam, Kerala and West Bengal states. The latter state election could see the end of the world’s longest ruling democratically elect- ed communist government. The opposition is Trinamool Congress, a Congress ally .It could do well in Tamil Nadu, where its regional DMK ally is under pressure from the opposition but still may win.
Congress can also spend more money on social welfare schemes, such as the rural employment scheme that is seen as helping the party win re-election in 2004. It could also start new schemes such as one giving cheap food grains to the poor. The government agreeing to a joint parliamentary probe may also take the wind out of the opposition’s sails.”If the elections come off reasonably well and the BJP is robbed of an issue, the Congress can cover some ground. But it has to work quickly. Fast track investigations, convictions that will send out a positive mes- sage,” said political analyst Amulya Ganguli.
One of the biggest advantages for the government may be the poor quality of the opposition, led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). While the party has been vocal in its condemnation of corruption, it straddles uneasily between its modern focus and grassroots Hindu nationalism. A failed march by the BJP to place an Indian flag in disputed Kashmir, for example, was widely seen as a political mistake that alienated middle class voters. The BJP also has its own corruption scandals to tackle in the southern state of Karnataka, where the party is in power. And some of its leaders, like Narendra Modi, chief minister of Gujarat state, are also highly controversial for their alleged role in fomenting religious violence against Muslims.
– OE News Bureau
She can talk casually about a designer gown she hasn’t found an occasion to wear with industrialist Ratan Tata and chat up with the same ease with some of the most powerful people in politics, business and media to allegedly fix the telecom ministry for A. Raja Kenya-born and London educated Niira Radia was perhaps destined to fly high, but little did she know that she would be trapped by tell-tale tapes one day and be come the face of a multi-billion dollar scam.
Not many knew about her till Open magazine three weeks ago blew the cover off 5,800 reported taped conversations from Radia’s phone over a six- month period in 2009 that stunned the nation with intimate disclosures about the incestuous world of the powerful and power-mongers.
The tapes show the chameleon lobbyist talking with top industrialists and star journalists, hard-selling DMK politician A. Raja’s bid for the second stint at telecom ministry. Even as more skeletons tumble out of the closet and insinuations are being made about her being an agent of a foreign intelligence agency, there is very little known about her background and her meteoric rise to fame. Radia, said to be in her fifties, movedto London from Kenya in the 1970s and schooled at the elite school Haberdashers’ Aske’s in northern London. She graduated from the University of Warwick and got married to UK businessman Janak Radia, a Gujarati. The marriage did not click and the divorced Radia moved to India in midnineties. She started off as Sahara liaison officer and soon became India representative of Singapore Airlines, KLM, UK Air.
It is during this time she forged her powerful contacts in the civil aviation ministry, the government and the media. By this time, Radia’s sprawling Chhattarpur farmhouse was generating much buzz among New Delhi’s bold and beautiful.Some of her prized contacts included Ananth Kumar, civil aviation minister during NDA’s tenure in 1998-99, and Ranjan Bhattacharya, foster son-in-law of then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. She tried to float an airline, Crown Air, in 2000, but the plan did not take off. In 2001, she set up Vaishnavi Communications, followed by Noesis, Victom and Neucom Consulting. Radia’s big-ticket break came when she bagged all 90 Tata group accounts in 2001. She is rumored to have such an influence over Ratan Tata that the top industrialist does not tolerate anyone speaking ill of her to his face. Another crowing moment was when Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Limited joined her clients’ list in 2008.
“She was leveraging the power of her clients who are some of the most powerful businessmen in the country,” Prashant Bhushan, a senior lawyer who filed a public interest litigation seeking the prosecution of Raja on the basis of the taped conversations of Radia, told IANS. In 2009, her ambitions soared further as she moved from corporate lobbying to fixing the lucrative telecom ministry, resulting in a scam that depleted the national exchequer by billions of rupees. Her overarching ambition perhaps became her nemesis when a suspicious IT department taped her conversations at the time of cabinet formation last year in UPA-II. Those tapes have now become part of the national conversation, showing a small elite subverting the system with impunity.
Fresh tapes of Radia’s conversations released by Outlook magazine reveal her telling Tarun Das, then chief mentor of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), that DMK chief M. Karunanidhi was insistent party member Raja retain his portfolio, despite questions over the manner in which airwaves were allotted to telecom firms. The government has told the Supreme Court that it authorized the tapping of PR executive Niira Radia’s phone.The government’s response was filed by the Ministry of Finance.
It said that the process of tapping Radia’s phone began on August 19, 2008 after a complaint received by the Finance Minister on November 16, 2007. The complaint had alleged that Radia in a span of just nine years built up a business empire worth Rs. 300 crore.It also alleged Radia was an agent of foreign intelligence agencies and she was indulging in anti-national activities.The affidavit states, “15 telephone lines including cell phone and SMSs of Radia and her associates were intercepted after the finance minister in November 2007 had received a complaint that the lobbyist had within a short span of nine years built up a business empire worth Rs. 300 crore and she was an agent of foreign intelligence agencies and was indulging in anti-national activities.”
The Finance Ministry then sought the Home Ministry’s clearance to tap Radia’s phone lines. 5800 phone calls were tapped during two periods: 120 days in 2008 and 60 days during 2009. A spokesperson of Radia’s firm, Vaishnavi Corporate Communications, has denied these allegations, saying she has never indulged in anti-national activities. The statement says, “There are queries arising from a case which is subjudice before the Honorable Supreme Court to which we are not a party. Therefore it is not within our knowledge and we cannot comment on the veracity of this. There are corporate vested interests which circulated an inadmissible and forged letter with malicious, baseless and derogatory content in November 2007. We had reached out to the media then and denied the same. We have complete faith in the investigative agencies. We hope that the forces working over time to harm us will be duly identified and punished. As responsible corporate neither we nor our promoter have ever indulged in any anti national activities.”
The affidavit also states that the tapes were not leaked by the Income Tax Department. The government has also said that while the leak should be investigated, it cannot stop the media from publishing transcripts of the conversations on the leaked tapes.
Some of those conversations with politicians, industrialists and others have been leaked to the media and have been reported on widely. Rata Tata, who is one of Radia’s biggest clients and was on the leaked tapes, had last month filed a case against the government in the Supreme Court on the grounds that the leaked tapes encroached upon his right to privacy. Tata said that while he had no objection to any investigation by the government, his conversations with Radia that were made available to the public were of a personal nature and are irrelevant to charges like tax evasion and foreign exchange violations, which are among the reasons why Radia’s phone was allegedly tapped from 2008-2009.
The tapes are also being used by the CBI to investigate the details of the 2G scam. Believed to be India’s largest-ever scam, it saw 2G spectrum being given at what are described as inexplicably low prices by former Telecom Minister A Raja to companies who were later found to be ineligible by experts. CBI raided Niira Radia and former TRAI chief Pradeep Baijal in the on going investigation of 2G scam that rocked the nation. The Raja Radia saga led the team to DMK doors wherein high profile Kanjimori connections are getting investigated.
-BY J GOPIKRISHNAN for OPINION EXPRESS
India’s next general election is almost three years away, but the race for prime minister ship may have already begun. Narendra Modi, the controversial chief minister of Gujarat, staged a three day fast on his 61st birthday purportedly to bring peace, prosperity and harmony to a state he has ruled for nearly a decade. Recently, the Supreme Court referred a case related to the death of Congress member of Parliament Ehsan Jafri during the riots to a trial court in Gujarat. This served as the cue for Modi to launch his fast. He said the apex court order vindicated his stand that he never supported the rioters, and promptly announced his fast for harmony. But the manner in which the fast has been played up as a national event reflects its larger political significance. Many top leaders of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is India’s main opposition party, attended the launch of the fast in Ahmedabad. Some other parties in the BJP led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) also sent representatives.
The fast, analysts say, is Modi’s spring board from which he is launching himself as the BJP’s, and possibly the NDA’s, prime ministerial candidate at a time when the ruling Congress party led United time when the ruling Congress party led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) is battling a spate of corruption scandals and a leadership crisis. Using the fast as a launch vehicle has symbolic value. the UPA recently buckled under the pressure of an indefinite fast by activist Anna Hazare to bring crucial changes to a proposed corruption law.
Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi is eying a bigger national leadership role and is positioning himself for a power struggle in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), say US diplomatic cables made public by online whistle blower WikiLeaks. “Modi is using his strong base in Gujarat to position himself for the BJP power struggle and to crow about Gujarat’s investment friendly (but certainly not minority-friendly) record,” says one of the cables which were uploaded earlier this week by Wikileaks. The cables sent by US diplomats in New Delhi focus on Modi’s rising stature in the BJP and claim that “Modi has his eyes on bigger things”.
Within six months of Modi taking over as chief minister in October 2001, Gujarat faced its worst hour. More than 1,000 people were killed in months long communal riots that started after the burning of a train carrying Hindu devotees at the Godhra station in February 2002. Many victims of the riots were Muslims,2002.
Many victims of the riots were Muslims, and critics accused the Modi government of not just failing to keep them safe but also of tacitly supporting Hindu rioters in an attempt to polarize the electorate and win state assembly elections due later that year.
Whether the polarization was intentional or incidental, Modi then reaped its rewards. The BJP won by a handsome margin, and he became the poster boy of its hardliners, or the supporters of its right wing Hindutva ideology.
Road to the top: Narendra Modi with other BJP leaders during a campaign in September 2002. For political opponents as well as civil society groups and minority organizations, though, he became the biggest threat to India’s secular ethos. It’s an image he is yet to shed. And as he looks to broaden his appeal beyond Gujarat, and beyond Hindus, undoing the polarization of 2002 is now the aspiring prime minister’s aspiring prime minister’s biggest challenge.
Political opponents, too, find it easiest to target his divisive politics. Even some allies of the BJP, such as the Janata Dal (United) with which it shares power in Bihar, have not been on good terms with Modi fearful that this may cost them crucial Muslim votes. Ahead of assembly elections in Bihar last year, chief minister and Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar returned the Rs. 5 crore flood relief that Gujarat had provided his government two years earlier. A number of petitions have been filed by riot victims and social activists alleging Modi’s complicity in the 2002 post Godhra riots.
Pro-development image While faltering on the social harmony front, Modi has keenly cultivated the image of an efficient and pro-business administrator. Gujarat’s gross domestic product has been growing at 11%, higher than the national average of 8-9%, and it has attracted thousands of crores of rupees in investment, mostly through the showpiece Vibrant Gujarat summit, a biennial congregation of industrialists from around the world launched by Modi.
The state has signed memorandums of understanding worth more than Rs. 40 trillion since 2003. More companies have firmed up investments in Gujarat than in most other states of the country. The state is on its way to become an auto hub, with Tata Motors, Ford, Peugeot and Maruti Suzuki eyeing investments.
Many important projects started before Modi was sworn in as chief minister have also materialized in his tenure. The project to build a dam on the Narmada river is an example. The state government’s rural electrification mission lit up even remote parts of Gujarat. With an aim to promote clean energy, Gujarat hopes to produce 200-300 megawatts of solar power by the year end, making it the solar capital of the country. “You are foolish if you are not in Gujarat,” Ratan Tata, chairman of Tata group, once said. Industrialists Anil Ambani and Sunil Bharti Mittal said he was a prime ministerial candidate ahead of the 2009 general elections.
Group, once said. Industrialists Anil Ambani and Sunil Bharti Mittal said he was a prime ministerial candidate ahead of the 2009 general elections. International recognition has also been forthcoming. In December 2008, members of the lower house of the British parliament passed a motion to support Vibrant Gujarat.
The US declined him a visa on account of the 2002 riots. But recently, a US Congressional Research Service report lauded his governance abilities and said Gujarat was perhaps India’s best example of “effective governance and impressive development”.
Rise in politics Modi’s stint in politics began with the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the BJP’s student wing. He joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the BJP’s ideological parent, as sangh pracharak and entered mainstream politics by joining the BJP in 1987. His rise through the ranks was brisk. Modi was made general secretary of the Gujarat unit within a year. Zealously building the party in the state, he aimed at creating a strong mass cadre and assumed the role of a strategist. In 2001, he got his big break when he was chosen by the party to replace Keshubhai Patel as Gujarat chief minister. His proximity to senior party leaders and his contribution to building the party’s base in the state were the key factors behind his choice.
Although Modi was victorious the 2002 assembly elections because of communal polarization, the election five years later was fought, and won, on the plank of good governance and development. Now, with the fast for harmony, he is hoping to move a step further.
Modi’s clout in the state cannot be ignored. Be it his effort to bring in industries to the state, his oratory skills or his dressing style, Modi has managed to catch the imagination of the masses, while building a huge popularity among women Voters have turned up in significant numbers in both assembly elections that Modi won.
Voter turnout in the 2002 state assembly election was a healthy 62% and the turnout of women voters was 58%. The corresponding figures for the 2007 assembly election were 60% and 57%. Contrast this with the voter turnout in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, which was 58.13% while the turnout for women was just 48%.
– OE News Bureau
The day of the psychologist is over. It is time for the political analyst. The election results are not just numbers; they define a nation’s ideological contours. Much of the post-poll discussion has been focused on personalities. Its time to reflect on policies. The verdict of the 2009 general election has once again brought the ‘centre’ in Indian politics to centre stage. India has returned to an even keel, I learnt the ABC of Indian politics from a Communist ideologue called Mohit Sen in his Narayanaguda flat in Hyderabad in the early 1970s. The one thing he kept drilling into my teenage mind all the time was the idea that India can only be ruled from the ‘political centre.’ That is how he justified the Communist Par ty of India’s support t to Indira Gandhi and that is why he was finally excommunicated by the Communists.
Analyzing Indian policies and politics over the past two decades, watching these being shaped in the Prime Minister’s Office for over four years, and writing speeches for the prime minister, I often recalled Mohit Sen’s wise words. India can not be governed either from the ‘right’ or the ‘left’. India can only be governed from the ‘centre’. Individual states could lurch in one direction and remain there for long periods of time, like West Bengal on the left and Gujarat on the right. But this sub- continental, civilizational republic can only be governed from the political ‘centre’. That political centre has been empowered once again by the results of the 2009 general election. The Indian National Congress always occupied the political centre. It may have lurched to the left at times and to the right at times, but its destiny was in the centre because it emerged as the consensual voice of a plural nation. All those political scientists who theorized about the so-called ‘era of coalitions’ in the post-Emergency period forgot that the Congress party was always a coalition. Its success is defined by remaining so.
The Congress entered the 2004 campaign on a weak wicket because Atal Bihari Vajpayee had tried, fairly success- fully, to usurp that centre space from the Congress. I was pilloried by many in the Congress and on the left for writing an editorial entitled ‘Atal Bihari Nehru.’ But that precisely was Vajpayee’s project, and that is why he became the first non- Congress prime minister to serve a full term in office.
Because the BJP grabbed a bit of that centre space, the Congress was forced to turn left to regain ground. The problem with the 2004 verdict was that the Left Front, and some in the Congress, actually interpreted the result to mean India had moved left. The Left’s ’60’ in 2004 came from a pro Achutanandan wave in Kerala, after he was initially denied a ticket by the par ty bosses in Delhi, and a pro Buddhadev wave in Bengal. Recall those T-shirts Thiruvanantpuram’s teenagers wore with ‘VS’ emblazoned on them?
The ideologues of the left however interpreted this ‘regional’ result as an endorsement of their political platform, and tried to impose this on the Congress through the National Common Minimum Programme. Many in the Congress happily walked into this trap because they were so dazed by the result and were so happy to return to government after almost a decade. In a classic Communist party man oeuvre Prakash Karat took charge of the Communist Party of India-Marxist by staging a virtual coup at the Party Congress in 2005 and tried to push the entire United Progressive Alliance leftwards. He tried to put the Congress on the defensive by charging it of abandoning the nationalist platform on foreign policy. The Left painted Manmohan Singh as a ‘neo-liberal’ economist, knowing full well that he was and has always been a ‘Keynesian’ liberal, and charged him of a pro-US bias.
Some in the Congress, like Mani Shankar Aiyar, seemed to fall into this trap and echoed the Left view that the 2004 verdict was in favor of pro-left policies. This created an ideological con- fusion within the Congress that the Left exploited by seeking to drive a wedge between the party and the government. The India- US civil nuclear cooperation agreement was used as an instrument to stage that coup.
In the meanwhile, the BJP dumped Vajpayee’s centrism and moved right without reflecting on why Vajpayee had tried to take the par ty away from its core ideology. Vajpayee was trying to ‘Congresses’ the BJP. Once the BJP abandoned that project under the leadership of Lal Kishen Advani] and Narendra Modi] it lost ‘middle India’. So what contributed to the revival of the Congress? I believe it was the Congress’ decision to strike out on its own, unencumbered by the ideological prejudices of the Left and the caste-based and regional parties. The Congress re- asserted its independent centrist identity. It remembered that it was in fact the original political coalition in India.?Early in the election campaign Prime Minister Manmohan Singh hit out at casteism and regionalism and identified these as equally damaging as communalism to the future of our Republic. Further, by rejecting the Third Front’s attempts to give the Congress a character certificate on nationalism, the Congress regained the centre space that they were trying to take away. The Left’s stance on the India-US nuclear deal was motivated by a Bolshevik instinct to hijack the Congress agenda. By guilt tripping the Congress and accusing the prime minister of abandoning ‘an independent foreign policy’ they were hoping to shape Indian foreign policy in the manner they sought to shape economic policy in the past.?If the Congress had gone along with the Left and dumped the nuclear deal it would have once again surrendered ‘its’ political space to the Left. Wisdom lay in asserting its own independence and, above all, in reclaiming the center space of Indian political life for itself. That is precisely what the Congress did in 2009. Returning to the ideological center, enabled the Congress to return to the Centre.
– Sanjaya Baru (Sanjaya Baru served as media advisor to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, from 2004 to 2008)
Man Of The Moment : It’s a mandate that has surprised all, including Congress. Result: Manmohan Singh becomes only the second Prime Minister after Jawahar Lal Nehru to be re-elected to the chair
People of India have delivered a clear verdict, In the highly polarized and seemingly unpredictable general election of 2009 at a historic threshold of coalition politics in the country, the Indian people have given a clear-cut thoughtful verdict by voting for stability, predictability and moderation. Indians have clearly opted for the centrist views in politics, diplomacy and economy. While taking up the challenge to seek a renewed mandate from the people, the Congress projected Dr Manmohan Singh as the persona of predictability and stability in national politics. Sonia Gandhi provided much-needed balance in the Congress’s public discourses. The Congress duo has obtained a pan Indian approval. Nobody can doubt that after reading the much-awaited numbers.
India is alive and young; the nation is full of optimism. The world is looking at India with respect and hope to provide qualitative leadership in science and technology. Ever y night, young radiologists in Bangalore read CT scans e-mailed to them by emergency-room doctors in the U.S. Few modern Americans are surprised to find that their dentist or lawyer is of Indian origin, or are shocked to hear how vital Indians have been to California’s high-tech industry. In ways big and small, Indians are changing the world.
That’s possible because India–the second most populous nation in the world, and projected to be by 2015 the most populous–is itself being transformed. Writers like to attach catchy tags to nations, which is why you have read plenty about the rise of Asian tigers and the Chinese dragon. Now here comes the elephant. India’s economy is growing more than 8% a year, and the country is modernizing so fast that old friends are bewildered by the changes that occurred be- tween visits. The major credit of writing the entire script goes to present Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, though India is fortunate to have successive quality leadership in late Rajiv Gandhi, late PV Narsimha Rao and Atal Bihari Vajpayee since last three decades. All the leaders formulated developmental policy for the nation resulting in major surge in Indian position globally.
The Congress-led incumbent government has got such a convincing mandate that it is well-placed to provide a stronger government than it provided from 2004 to 2009. People can heave a sigh of relief that a period of political stability lies ahead for five years. The Congress will talk about inclusive growth as it did last time, but in the coming days the stock ex- change will have reasons to rejoice as the Left parties are out of New Delhi’s power structure.
The Prakash Karat-led era of Left dominance in New Delhi is ending on a highly controversial and humiliating note. No doubt, the Communist Par ty of India- Marxist is being rocked to its very foundations. A historic turning point is at hand for the Indian Left, comparable in magnitude to the split in 1964. For the conceivable future, the CPI-M will be forced into a mood of introspection and a painful course correction.
In sum, the quintessence of Election 2009 lies is that India still remains what it always has been through millennia — a centrist country of people who opt for moderation and balance, especially in troubled times in their tumultuous history. Indian electorate have elected this government headed by Dr Manmohan Singh to fight economic downtrend, hostile border states promoting rouge ideologies and terrorism, growing naxal trouble challenging internal security and to counter corruption in public life to make government apparatus more transparent.
– Prashant Tewari (Writer is Editor , Opinion Express Group)
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