The Dice Favour None

IT was finally on a rusty Remington at Sitaram Kesri's residence—not the cold computers at the AICC office—that the death warrant of the Gujral government was punched out. It was a reluctant, almost intimate gesture. The circumstances that provoked it were equally laden with complexity. The Congress doesn't want elections. "But we couldn't have acted otherwise," says party general secretary Tariq Anwar, a Kesri aide, in a confessional tone. An AICC functionary explains the predicament—"what Ayodhya is for the BJP, the Jain Commission report is for the Congress". Simply put, a plank that prompts a blind leap of faith.

So, at 6.30 pm on November 28, after a quiet stocktaking with the old guard—Arjun Singh, Sharad Pawar and Pranab Mukherjee—Kesri left for Rashtrapati Bhavan with his final word on the seven-month-old I.K. Gujral government. During the course of a state banquet at 8 pm, Gujral handed over his resignation to K.R. Narayanan. Soon, a stately cavalcade of white cars flashing red and blue lights strung out from 7, Race Course Road as UF leaders sped for a valedictory visit to Rashtrapati Bhavan.

The die was cast. The 11th Lok Sabha seemed destined for a premature end. A general election which nobody wants—not the BJP, nor the UF or Congress, not the first-timers—appeared inevitable.As UF leaders held out the threat of horse-trading to Narayanan in case he delays Parliament's dissolution, elections look a certainty in February. A prospect that thrills no one.

Of course, all sorts of options were being bandied about tentatively. On Saturday, a full 24 hours after tripping up the 15-party UF regime and staking claim to power, the Congress held up yet another opening out of the cul-de-sac it found itself in. Orissa chief minister J.B. Patnaik, a trusted Kesri hand, said the party could still back a non-DMK UF grouping. He articulated the climb-down in carefully chosen, non-committal words: "We are not anxious to form the government. We are not hankering for power. At the same time, we are not shirking the responsibility of leading the country out of this crisis which could lead to mid-term polls." The UF issued a swift rejection of the Congress gesture.

The formula was not new: either Mulayam Singh Yadav or G.K. Moopanar, given their 'soft stance' towards the Congress, could head an alternate coalition. Mulayam in any case wants a tie-up with the Congress in UP. And Moopanar would be the obvious man to counter the party's perceived 'anti-Tamil' stance.

SIMULTANEOUSLY, a BJP move was afoot to do a UP in Delhi. Some Congress MPs, mainly from Maharashtra, led by Suresh Kalmadi were weighing the option of supporting the BJP "for political stability at the Centre". On Saturday evening, Loktantrik Congress chief Naresh Aggarwal—the protagonist of the UP split—stoked the fire saying 50 Congress MPs were in touch with the BJP leadership.

The stalemate that obtained at the weekend stemmed from simple arithmetic—Kesri had staked claim, but he couldn't rustle up the 131 Lok Sabha MPs that his party is short of. The BJP, likewise, tested the waters on Saturday morning but knew it couldn't net in the 80-odd MPs it needed and preferred to mark time. At this curious stage, the 15-party United Front, which had looked so fragile just the previous fortnight, now appeared more cohesive than its monolithic former ally. Despite the tremors, nobody seemed in a position to break anybody else.

Face-to-face with an unwanted election, Kesri looked ill. Offering to "shoulder the responsibility" of forming a government, he drooped as if in anticipation of failure. Far from tomtomming its victory at having ousted a recalcitrant government, the Congress wore a look of defeat: it had yielded the high moral ground to the UF, alienated the Tamils, and barely managed to hang on to its own MPs—as of now. Also, it had no USP to take to the people, perhaps not even its Great White Hope, Sonia Gandhi.

The word is self-destruct. Emotions and the Sonia factor rather than realpolitik had dominated three formal CWC meetings and over a dozen informal sittings of senior leaders after November 20 when the CPP executive first demanded the ouster of DMK ministers as a precondition for continuing support. Kesri initially reasoned with the party that such a step would help the BJP, "the very force we are committed to fight", but gave in when opponents like Arjun Singh, Jitendra Prasada and V.B. Reddy raised a 'chorus' that nothing short of withdrawal of support would do.

Kesri was on the hotline to Gujral to seek an escape route—the prime minister would have to sacrifice the DMK, even for a month. As a climb down from the November 20 demand, Kesri also got another CWC meeting to agree that it would have no objection to the DMK ministers being reinducted if an eminent persons' committee found them "innocent" in the Rajiv case. To the immense relief of the Congress, speaker P.A. Sangma adjourned the House sine die on November 24, giving "enough time for cool thinking" without an acrimonious showdown on the Jain Commission report or a tricky no-confidence vote.

Sources close to Kesri say he'd obtained Sonia's nod to this formula. But the UF spurned the idea and stood firmly by the DMK's side. Once Kesri got a whiff of the UF's stand, he sprang into action. There was little else he could do—by November 28, hardliners, clamouring for some action, had started calling him 'ungrateful'. "The choice for him was to be at the helm for three days or three months," added another AICC functionary. If he had failed to act on November 28, his head would have rolled faster than Gujral's as the hawks were out to get him. By succumbing to them, he has ensured he continues at least till the polls, if not beyond.

To steamroll a potential revolt, Kesri proposed that the Congress should stake claim to power, a move that would cement warring factions and cool the restless first-timers. The CWC, in accordance with his wishes, opposed dissolution since that would mean imposing yet another election. "I have staked my claim. We will prove the majority on the floor of the House," asserted Kesri after meeting the president.

That claim was really an act of desperation. For, the United Front constituents, spearheaded by hyperactive convenor Chandrababu Naidu, and numbering about 160 MPs in the Lok Sabha, promptly submitted a letter to Narayanan saying they wouldn't support a BJP or Congress-led government. Sticking to the martyr's righteous pitch, Naidu also told the press on November 29 that the UF would not accommodate any breakaway factions from the Congress.

Some Congressmen are resigned to the idea that the president will reject Kesri's claim—Narayanan is already seeking legal advice. "Our next course would be to select good poll candidates. We don't have the numbers now," admitted a CWC member. Kesri, though, kept up a facade of hope. "We, as the single largest party among the secular groups, hope the UF constituents would reconsider our appeal," he told Outlook.

A conciliatory tone was evident throughout in Kesri's submission to the hawks' agenda. He took care to sound apologetic for Justice Jain's indictment of the entire Tamil community in the Rajiv assassination. He got Arjun Singh and Mani Shankar Aiyar to come out with a mild defence of Justice Jain saying there were genuine mistakes "in the phrasing". Even Sonia, in Madras on a Rajiv Gandhi Foundation assignment mid-week, praised the contribution of Tamils to society.

The party had obviously recognised the electoral clout of Tamil Nadu. Mani Shankar Aiyar says the party will get 30 seats there if 'madam' campaigns—a remote possibility, according to 10, Janpath sources. Elsewhere, the party is busy striking preparatory alliances. It has roped in Laloo Yadav's RJD; Digvijay Singh has been trying to befriend the BSP in Madhya Pradesh; Kesri wants to explore the return of the TMC into the fold.

As for poll-preparedness, the UF seems to have exited in better health. It has defanged the Congress and ensured its own survival, perhaps beyond the next Lok Sabha poll. "We'r e going to stay together and do much better this time. The UF will emerge as the single largest formation," declared JD leader Jaipal Reddy. Acknowledging the north-south perception gap, he said the UF would take on both BJP and the Congress. The Left, lashing out at the Congress for its fifth betrayal, made it clear that anti-Congressism would be the order of the day. As for the JD, it was reluctant to create acrimony which might preclude a future tie-up.

Gujral's graceful exit from a scandal-free seven months in office was scripted by Naidu and CPI(M) general secretary H.K.S. Surjeet. To counter Congress efforts to break the UF, Naidu and Surjeet demanded that the coalition partners put on record their intention to stick together and eschew support to Congress and BJP efforts to form a government. They concentrated on cementing the two major fault-lines in the UF: Mulayam and Moopanar. The former, who has more to fear from elections than anyone else, fell in line at once. The SP was the first party to submit its letter to Naidu at 11 am on November 28. It took Moopanar another seven hours to follow suit (he cautiously left a door open for a new combine with the Congress but without much hope) but Naidu was able to announce, with palpable relief, at 6 pm: "They are sending the letter".

IT was Naidu who ensured that the UF backed the DMK to the hilt, not budging an inch even when the Congress made increasingly desperate efforts at a compromise. Gujral and Kesri would have liked nothing better than to bury the issue. By dragging negotiations over nine agonising days, both hoped to gain the upper hand over the hawks in their respective camps. But with Naidu ranged firmly alongside, DMK leader M. Karunanidhi refused to back down. Kesri, having been forced into a categorical demand for the ouster of the DMK, had nothing to work with.

At the same time, a new factor was introduced in the shape of the "New MPs Forum". A combine allegedly initiated by the BJP, it consisted largely of first-time MPs whose one-point programme it was to prevent dissolution of the Lok Sabha. They didn't want to face an election after less than two years. The grievance cut across party lines but in effect, it provided an ideal forum for the BJP to prise dissatisfied MPs away from their respective parties. The Congress and UF, wise to the BJP gameplan, quickly reined in their MPs and sternly warned them against walking into the "BJP trap".

It was a measure of the MPs' reluctance to face elections that they signed a petition against dissolution despite orders from their party bosses. When they called on the president, he complimented them on their efforts to preserve the House and suggested they prevail on their respective party leaders. "The Rajya Sabha leaders are deciding the fate of the Lok Sabha," the MPs complained bitterly, a snide reference to the Elders-dominated CWC. "No one will go to the BJP. We are not such small people," declared JD MP Basavaraja Rayareddy, a member of the forum. When it became clear that the BJP would not succeed, the move fizzled out.

The UF had obviously taken a long-term view; it could remain a force at the Centre in future only if it remained united. A scattered UF would work to the advantage of both the BJP and Congress which could then look forward to a one-to-one fight. The federal front, in particular, had to stick together. Wary of both Congress and BJP unity, they had more at stake in a federal formation at the Centre than the other constituents. While the UF stand on the DMK was presented as being in the larger national interest, realpolitik was at its heart.

Until the very last moment, the UF couldn't quite make up its mind whether to face a no-confidence motion in the House or exit quietly from power. The JD and DMK were in favour of a debate which would "expose the Congress". But the Left and TDP, fearing that the Congress would try and break the UF during the debate, preferred dissolution. As a compromise, Gujral decided to quit and leave the ball in the president's court. Now, as he prepares to assume the role of caretaker prime minister and then elder statesman, he can look back on a job well-done—a scandal-free tenure and a dramatic exit.