National

Patch-Up Or Polls?

Fear of elections may force United Front constituents to forge another coalition

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Patch-Up Or Polls?
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And so, a confused Bose attended Parliament and voted as per the party whip. The minority Deve Gowda government fell in the face of the grudging, yet decisive joint vote of the Congress and the BJP. The count, tolled at the stroke of midnight on April 11, was 338 votes against the confidence move and just 190 in favour of Gowda. Kesri ended the day with a sense of personal triumph but political instability and a mid-term poll, avoidable strain for the exchequer, loom large. This near-apocalyptic scenario, which may yet play itself out, is the logical conclusion of Kesri's March 30 letter to President Shankar Dayal Sharma withdrawing support to the UF government.

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In fact, Congress support—a commodity that hasn't yet outlived its utility—had been cause for concern from the very beginning. Till October '96 it was unconditional and was deemed conditional after November 4 and issuebased after February 16. Kesri may have worked to a plan of his own, but he surprised even his own party leaders by pulling down the Gowda government in what appeared to be baffling haste. While the political future of the UF seems to be shaky, that of 80-year-old Kesri as well as his party look equally uncertain.

The first signs of discontent within the Congress against Kesri's actions have already come to the fore. Bose was among the 60-odd MPs who met at Sharad Pawar's residence on April 12 and demanded a CPP meeting for a post-mortem of the recent developments. That gathering seemed a prelude to an explicit oust-Kesri campaign. At the bare minimum, it could lead to a temporary 'readjustment' among national and regional parties in their desire to avoid elections.

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The BJP, the party both the Congress and the UF promised to keep at bay, is triumphantly waiting in the wings to exploit the political opportunity thrown up by the fall of the Gowda government. "We are for a fresh mandate," says party spokeswoman Sushma Swaraj. "But we have authorised Atal Behari Vajpayee to take an appropriate decision on the current political situation."

 As for the United Front, the protestations of "total unity" notwithstanding, confusion reigned supreme in the aftermath of the collapse in Parliament. The primary questions facing the leaders were: Should efforts be made to reinstal a United Front government? Should the new government have Congress participation? And more importantly, should the Front agree to dump Deve Gowda as leader, in line with the Congress demand?

The hardline option is to foreclose all other options and prepare the ground for fresh elections by writing to the President that they would support neither the Congress nor the BJP efforts to cobble a coalition. This was precluded the day the confidence motion was to be discussed, with TMC leader G.K. Moopanar and Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav making it clear that they were not in favour of taking such a step. While Mulayam argued that going back to the people at this juncture would be playing into the BJP's hands, at least in north India, Moopanar maintained he could not take a decision without consulting his party.

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In the two days following the government's defeat, the four regional parties of the United Front—the Telugu Desam Party, the DMK, the TMC and the AGP—met under the banner of the Federal Front and endorsed the general view that prevailed against plunging the country into a mid-term poll. By implication, the four parties seem to have provided the key to answering the other questions too. A dialogue had to be reopened with the Congress to form a new government, even if this entailed dumping Gowda as leader of the Front. Barring the AGP, the other three parties said so in so many words at the meeting held at Tamil Nadu House in the capital on April 13. AGP leader Prafulla Kumar Mahanta said he was opposed to the dissolution of the Lok Sabha, but felt that it would be wrong to ditch Gowda.

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The sensitive leadership issue came up for discussion once again that evening in the steering committee meeting of the United Front. Jaipal Reddy, spokesman of the Front, revealed late on Sunday night that the leadership question would be formally discussed and a decision would be arrived at shortly. Even Gowda agreed to step down in case the steering committee so recommended.

Clearly, the United Front leaders wanted to watch the progress of the incipient anti-Kesri campaign that had taken hold within the Congress, await the CWC and CPP reactions, and see which way the wind would blow before taking a decision.

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But Reddy's statement was tantamount to the first official admission of the fact that the Front was open to a change in its leadership. The admission was being viewed in the context of Kesri announcing the day before that he was not in the race for prime ministership. Significantly, Reddy chose this moment to announce that "serious informal discussions" were on between Kesri and Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu for the formation of a new government. Kesri had sensed the mood among his own MPs and had actually begun to parley with the Front even without a formal change of its leadership.

Both the sides had climbed down considerably from their positions that had led to the April 11 showdown in Parliament. First, Kesri lowered his initial pitch for a Congress-led government, demanding merely Gowda's removal. Then, the UF too softened its no-change-of-leader line, indicating openly that the question could be examined afresh.

THE changes came about because of the growing disapproval within the Congress itself of the manner in which the United Front was voted out and the all-round pressures to take steps which could keep out the hated spectre of the mid-term poll. On April 12, TMC MPs met Moopanar and agreed that "elections must be avoided at all cost". It was also decided that though some feelers had come from the BJP, the party would not respond favourably. This narrowed down the TMC's options to a UF government, with Congress support or participation. The MPs also wanted Moopanar to take an active part in the deliberations and press for any solution that circumvents elections. Indications that the BJP could be looking to fish in the troubled waters of the Front as well as the Congress also contributed to the pressure for a dialogue.

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But not everyone in the Front is backing the dialogue option unequivocally. The Left Front, for one, is strongly opposed to taking any step which could lead to Congress participation in the government. West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu, in fact, was credited with the view that no talks should be attempted with the Congress and that the Front should prepare for fresh elections. But his was a minority view. The Left leaders have actually been consistently opposed to any formula which involves a change of leadership.

In the days immediately following the fall of the government, the Left showed no signs of change in its stance. CPI(M) general secretary Harkishen Singh Surjeet refused to come on the line when Kesri called him on April 12 morning. This was to assert the Left line that the leadership issue was "not negotiable". As for Kesri, his aborted gameplan that once the United Front was pulled down he could move to form the government seemed to have been based on two calculations. That non-BJP parties would necessarily support the Congress. And that an immediate takeover was possible as there is a constitutional obligation before Parliament to pass the Finance Bill. However, Speaker P.A. Sangma was able to convince the President that the Bill could be passed even after the government was voted out. So, for now, Gowda will continue as caretaker prime minister till a new government is sworn in or Parliament dissolved.

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Accordingly, a three-day Lok Sabha session from April 21 has been convened. Sharma, perturbed over the timing of Kesri's decision to withdraw support (the Indo-Pak talks were on), is understood to have conveyed to Kesri that the act was not in conformity with Congress tradition. Besides, the action was fraught with the risk of plunging the country into a financial mess and creating confusion among foreign investors.

Kesri now faces the wrath of his party MPs, many of whom say they voted under pressure. "I pressed the red-button (negative vote) in Parliament much against my conscience. I asked Pawar to allow me to vote according to the dictates of my conscience. I regret having supported Kesri as a substitute for P.V. Narasimha Rao as CPP leader," said A.R. Antulay, senior Congressman and former chief minister of Maharashtra. "The party has been taken for a ride. We must evaluate the loss of face we have suffered and fix accountability," exclaimed Jagannath Mishra, former Bihar chief minister and Kesri-baiter. Shubaram Reddy, another

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Congress leader, fears that after the Congress' latest move, the party "would be hauled up by the people as the biggest political destabiliser in the country". So far, President Sharma has maintained an enigmatic silence and is reported to be awaiting the passage of the Finance Bill

before he takes any decision. Unless two of the three existing political blocs (the BJP, UF and Congress) join hands, or a fresh polarisation favouring a majority or near-majority in favour of one bloc takes place, Sharma is likely to allow Gowda to continue as caretaker prime minister should polls become inevitable. However, much depends on the outcome of the brewing revolt against Kesri in the Congress. Its success could provide fresh and much-needed elixir to the now demoralised non-BJP parties.

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