Congratulations have been pouring in from within the Congress too, especially from a substantial section that harks back to the Nehruvian era. Members of the party’s powerful reforms lobby—many of whom are in the Union cabinet—are putting up a brave face, explaining away the absence of big-ticket reforms to the international economic climate, saying reforms will happen, incrementally.
Party sources attribute the tone and tenor of the party’s first budget after the recent elections to the signals that have come from party president Sonia Gandhi herself. The fact that Pranab, rather than P. Chidambaram, was appointed finance minister was itself an indication, they stress, that the budget would tilt towards the social sector. "Whether it was our party’s manifesto, the government’s vision outlined in the President’s address to Parliament, or the prime minister’s letter to the finance minister and other ministers, they all stressed that the advances made in the social sector would be consolidated," says a party functionary.
For the diehard ‘socialists’ in the party, this is a victory. "The budget is in line with the core thought process of the Congress," says party general secretary and chairman of the media cell, Janardan Dwivedi. He stresses that the budget is a "result of the policies adopted by the last UPA government which ensured that India was not as badly affected as many western nations by the economic meltdown". He points to the party’s Bangalore resolution in 2003, which had spoken of a mixed economy and the importance that should be given to the public sector. Another party general secretary, B.K. Hariprasad, joins the chorus: "We have returned to our roots. This is a people-oriented budget in which we have stuck to our ideology."
But the reformers in the party have struck a more cautious note—and are nowhere as euphoric. "In a sense, the mandate decided the budget," a pro-reforms central minister told Outlook, "apart from the fact that there’s still no consensus on reforms in the party." His view was that the government had a choice between cutting back on social sector spending and borrowing heavily to do so, even though that would increase the fiscal deficit. "It was felt," he said, "that increasing money flows into rural areas would fuel spending there." But, he stressed, reforms in banking, insurance and the pension sector "were needed" to finance infrastructure and they were merely "on hold" because of the international economic climate.
Other "reformers" have decided to adopt the middle path.
