Tales of heads

The two largest parties should do whatever is required for stability

Rickety coalitions are defined by the phenomenon of the tail wagging the dog. Governments with fragile majorities are held to ransom, brow-beaten and blackmailed by stray MPs. This week, the UPA government did not present a reassuring picture as it tried to get its numbers right for the vote of confidence. Samajwadi Party General Secretary Amar Singh strutted across the national arena and television channels making claims about his organising skills. And the government itself sometimes gave the impression that it was willing to pay any price to survive. Shibu Soren, an experienced hand at tipping the balance — it was after all the five JMM votes he delivered that saved the Narasimha Rao government in 1993 — was another key player. Only, this time, Soren was himself at the receiving end: the rest of his party decided to do a deal with the government and he had perforce to go along. In a situation where all the sides are desperate for numbers, every MP is free to dictate his price.

But why grudge the small parties their day in the sun? For the last four years, we have witnessed the Left, with only 60 MPs, holding up reform measures from the pension bill to the disinvestment of unproductive PSUs, while the 150-plus MPs of the Congress remained bemused spectators. The communists now claim to have been ill-used by the Congress, whereas they enjoyed far more clout in this regime than their numbers entitled them to. They installed their men as vice-president and speaker of the Lok Sabha and did not let the Congress have it all its own way even in the choice of president. From Planning Commission appointments to positions in key educational institutions, think tanks and nominated Rajya Sabha MPs, the Left usually managed to have the deciding voice. In its hubris it forgot to display the conventional modesty expected of backroom boys. At every political crisis, we had threatening sound bites from the CPI’s A.B. Bardhan. Prakash Karat, once considered low-profile and soft-spoken, seems now to enjoy being centrestage and being dubbed as the most powerful man in the country.

Every coalition government, whether in the state or at the Centre, has a tail. The worry starts when the tail determines the animal’s direction. A small number of legislators use the opportunity to dictate to the majority. In Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s first term in office, he was constantly looking over his shoulder to see what demand a volatile Jayalalithaa would make next. If Vajpayee had a much better time in his second stint as prime minister it was because he had more breathing space, since no single party had the power of veto over him.

Story continues below this ad

At times, in politics, the tail does not just propel the beast; it actually converts into the head. This is what happened in Karnataka where Deve Gowda’s JD (S) was first the powerful tail of Congress Chief Minister Dharam Singh’s government; and then Gowda’s son, H. D. Kumara-swamy, metamorphosed into the head of the government and took over as chief minister. The BJP, with the largest number of MLAs, supported him grudgingly for fear that he would otherwise defect back to the Congress. In the past, Mayawati managed to become UP Chief Minister thrice, though she was third in the tally of party MLAs, by taking advantage of the fact that the SP and the BJP would not back each other. This phenomenon reached absurd levels in Jharkhand where an independent MLA, Madhu Koda, has been installed as chief minister by the Congress and the RJD simply to keep out the BJP. Koda’s major strength is that without his vote the government would fall.

The UPA government may have appeared distinctly tottery, but it is doubtful if the next election will throw up a more stable arrangement. The prognosis is distinctly gloomy. We will have three major groups, the UPA, the UNPA and the NDA, each pulling in different directions. It is expected that, as in the past, the Congress and the BJP will together get more than half the seats in the Lok Sabha. But since neither will support the other, the grouping with the least numbers, the Third Front, will in all probability exploit the stalemate to its own advantage. Mayawati, who has within these last few days emerged as the queen bee of the UNPA, will, in such circumstances, have a clear advantage. Unless the Congress and BJP utilise their larger numbers to give the country a semblance of stability, we are heading for prolonged bouts of instability.

expressexpressindia.com