Prime Minister Manmohan Singh finally won his politicalspurs on July 22, a day of dramatic highs and lows. After weeks of politicaluncertainty, charges of horse trading, and a last minute effort by theopposition BJP to undermine the Congress' credibility by accusing it of tryingto "buy" its MPs' votes, he won a confidence vote by a convincingmargin of 19 votes -- 275 to 256. Dr Singh -- "King Cong", as heis being jubilantly described by Congress activists -- finally has the mandateto pursue not just the Indo-US civil nuclear agreement but the economic reformsthat the Left Parties had vetoed thus far. "Parliament has spoken in anunambiguous manner," the Prime Minister told journalists, who mobbed him,as he emerged beaming from the Lok Sabha, "This augurs well forthe country's development and for India's efforts to take its rightful place inthe comity of nations."
Minutes before, he had been seen in the house, hugging Congress MP Rahul Gandhi,and receiving the congratulations of colleagues, allies and a solitary CPI (M)MP Varkala Radhakrishnan (81), who apparently had not forgotten the traditionalparliamentary courtesies.
Before that, of course came the drama caused by the electronic voting mechanismBut as a recount of the electronic vote began, in the Telugu Desam Party'sparliamentary office, UNPA leader Chandrababu Naidu remained closeted with CPI(M) politburo member Sitaram Yechury, watching the proceedings on a TV screen.When the results came in, the two men -- who expressed their determination to gothrough with the July 23 breakfast meeting at the home of their new friend, UPchief minister Mayawati -- looked uncertain and shaky.
Not only were the two on the losing side of the vote that had just taken place,Naidu had also just lost two MPs on the floor, Deputy Leader M Jagannathand D K Audikesavulu, both of whom voted for the UPA. But while Jagannathsucceeded in doing so, Audikesavulu had his ballot paper ( since his vote failedto register on the electronic machine ) snatched by party leader Yerran Naiduand his vote changed in an unseemly scuffle on the floor of the house! If hisvote had gone through, the government would have won by 276 – the figure thathad been predicted by Pranab Mukherjee on July 21!
In sharp contrast to the UPA which remained intact at the end of the vote, theBJP and the NDA stood in tatters -- members of the BJP, the JD-U, Shiv Sena,Shiromani Akali Dal and the BJD had either voted for the UPA or abstained fromthe vote. For a grouping looking to form the next government, it was clearly nota propitious beginning. Of the other opposition parties, the Left and the BSPappeared to be intact, but the TDP had taken a hit. The Samajwadi Party,which had looked as though it was on the verge of collapse, was able to stem thetide at 34 – it lost five of its members.
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Earlier,the atmosphere had been electric all day, with the opposition, led by the BJP,trying its hardest to stall the proceedings of the house, leading to severaladjournments. But from mid-afternoon, there were whispers about some dramaticrevelations -- and then it happened. Three BJP MPs Ashok Argal and FagganKulaste from Madhya Pradesh and Mahavir Bhagora from Rajasthanmarched into the Lok Sabha, and emptied two black leather bags filled withbundles of notes, claiming that the three crores that lay on their desks was thefirst tranche they had received from the Samajwadi Party -- the Congress' newally -- to vote for the UPA.
As pandemonium broke out in the house, leading to yet another adjournment,outside in the corridors, there was panic in Congress circles. Grim-faced unionministers, chief ministers, party managers and spokespersons rushed aroundtrying to figure out how much truth there was in the allegations, whether therewas indeed a CD of the alleged sting operation, whether -- as was being alleged-- the SP's man for all seasons, Amar Singh, and the Congress' Ahmed Patel, whois Congress President Sonia Gandhi's Political Secretary had been caught ontape.
Top cabinet ministers, including those belonging to the allied parties, rushedto the PM's room for a stocktaking, even as the usually reclusive Patel came onTV denying the charges, adding that they if the allegations against him wereproved right, he would retire from public life.
In sharp contrast, triumphant BJP leaders including former party presidentRajnath Singh, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Prakash Jawdekar -- and theirnon-political hangers on -- were spotted gleefully telling journalists the"details" of the CD which, they claimed, would be aired on awell-known TV news channel soon.
An ecstatic Satyapal Jain, a BJP MP, asked a journalist, "You wanted toknow why we were so quiet. Now you know." Simultaneously, the BJP demanded that Speaker Somnath Chatterjee decide on the next course of action,while they began the cry for the resignation of the Prime Minister. CPI(M) MPs,meanwhile, tried to distance themselves from the whole business -- since theybelonged to neither the " giver" or " receiver" category,even though it later emerged that some of them may have been aware of theoperation.
Then as everyone waited to see the CD on air, the TV channel head was spotted inthe corridors. As everyone pounced on him to get details of the CD, ittranspired that neither Amar Singh nor Ahmed Patel had been caught on tape, thatthe channel's "investigations" were incomplete (the channel head toldjournalists that if he had a complete story, it would be on air), that thechannel had been caught unawares by the BJP's revelations in the house, and thatthe Speaker's office has asked him to hand over whatever footage he already had.But an unfazed BJP, meanwhile, began to claim that the government had pressuredthe channel not to show the CD.
In short, it looked as though the entire confidence debatehad been derailed, with allegations of money having changed hands threatening toovershadow and undermine the confidence motion, and the government's efforts towin itself a mandate to rule till the end of its five year term. The housefinally convened for the last part of the debate, before the Prime Minister'sscheduled reply and the vote. After the Speaker expressed his intention toinvestigate the charges made earlier by the BJP, he called on the last fewspeakers.
It was then that a remarkable quartet, all younger than 40 -- none fromthe Congress -- braved the taunts of the opposition to make a forceful defenceof the government. They were the Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimmen's Asadudin Owaisi,the People's Democratic Party's Mehbooba Mufti, the National Conference's OmarAbdullah and the LJSP's Ranjeet Ranjan.
If Owaisi expressed his gratitude to the government for all that it had done forminority welfare and Ranjeet Ranjan, a young Sikh woman MP from Bihar, took onthe Akali Dal frontally, Omar outdid himself: Taking on both the BJP andthe Left, he said, "As a Muslim, I feel that the deal would helpIndia to achieve a rightful place in the international fora. The enemy ofMuslims is not the deal, but hunger, poverty and unemployment."
Taken together, the four speeches provided a glimpse of the possibility ofbipartisan politics, in which politicians could rise above petty partyinterests, in sync with the speech made by Rahul Gandhi in the morning. In away, it changed the mood of the house.
And then it was the PM's turn. As he rose to speak, it wasclear that the opposition had no intention of letting him speak: within minutes,the PM walked across and handed over his speechto the officials and then began the voting, with four sick BJP MPs, includingformer Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and actor Dharmendra, being permittedto cast their votes from the lobby.
The BJP, which had been hoping to stage a walkout, to rob the voting of anylegitimacy, looked a little nonplussed, but now had no choice but to go throughwith the actual voting. The Congress, clearly, faced with the choice of havingthe Prime Minister being repeatedly interrupted -- especially as his speech wasto take on the Leader of the Opposition directly -- and a vote in which theywere sure they had the numbers, chose the latter.
And wisely so. Even though union external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjeelater lambasted the opposition for " heaping allegations on the PM and thennot waiting to hear him reply." Advani, he said, had begun "the greattradition of speak and run."
For the UPA, now, what's next? Well, now, will begin thetough part, as it gears up first for a round of assembly elections in the keystates of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chattisgarh, Jammu and Kashmir and Delhi,before it faces general elections. It may not have to look out for the Leftanymore, but it will have to deal with a far more whimsical ally in the SP, notto mention checking spiraling prices and rising inflation. As for reforms, theUPA will only be able to initiate those that don't require parliamentaryapproval. Because even though it has won its confidence vote, it is more thanclear that the three pronged opposition of the Left parties, the BJP and theUNPA will not permit it to pass any laws.
So while the UPA has certainly won the day, and the Prime Minister has emergedas a leader in his own right, the real victor of the last few days may well beMayawati. Her emergence on the political centrestage, the manner in which shehas been wooed by UNPA and Left leaders who have described her as apossible Prime Minister, may well change the political dynamics of this country.For the last few days, Dalit MPs cutting across political lines have beentalking excitedly in Parliament about the prospect of a Dalit PM in thevery near future. The UNPA and the Left see an opportunity in this, even thoughtheir leaders are a bit wary of being upstaged by Mayawati -- but if reportscoming in from different states are any indication, she could well beunstoppable. A week is clearly a long time in politics.
