It is apt here to quote from an interview Singh had given to Outlook sixyears ago on the eve of contesting for the South Delhi Lok Sabha seat.Asked how could the government clean up politics, he had said:
"The government must finance political activity on a much larger scale. I've been saying since when I was FM, that the government give Rs 1 crore to an MP, but this money should be put in a national pool and made available to finance legitimate political activity, including elections. Also, political activity requires a lot of effort on the part of an MP. He can get one assistant at the maximum cost of Rs 8,000. The MP does not even get adequate secretarial facilities to attend to his constituency. So many succumb to temptation to finance such activities in an unauthorised manner. Several constituents come to the MP from outside the state, expecting the latter to provide for them, which the MP's salary and allowance don't permit. So even good people often have to raise finances from outside."
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It was obvious then, as it is now, that the good doctor would lose anelection; the reforms had definitely enraged the generally system-subverting,freely-bribe-giving south Delhi denizens.
On Congress’ polar opposite is the CPIM; in true-blue "Cholbe-Na"style, the party has joined hands with its sworn-enemy BJP for scrapping thescheme. A careful look into how CPIM MPs spend their quotas could be veryuseful. It could well be that, aping West Bengal’s tradition for returningcentral funds for development schemes, these parliamentarians too are hard putto spend their designated amount in five years.
On the contrary, we expect Leftist MPs to scream for a CAG report, at thevery least a careful monitoring of the scheme. But no, according to the CPIM,MPs don’t need any money to develop their constituency or help the people. Whyshould they, when all they have to do is to come to Parliament, opposeeverything that the government says, and stage sporadic walkouts! The electionscan always be rigged. Especially in WestBengal where even more pathetic alternatives are crying for attentionand getting dumped by the relatively more politically conscious voting class.
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Right now, the government is busy wooing the Left on several counts: the WTO,disinvestment, pension reforms Bill, cutting subsidies, reforming PDS—you nameit. It’s amazing that the government has any time left for any administrationafter all this heavy-duty wooing. Frankly, after one and a half years of the UPA,the Left’s prima-donna-ism is getting a bit tiring. Karat & Co’s studiedrecalcitrance is increasingly looking like Arundhati Roy’s intellectual fightagainst neo-imperialism in poor English—the Left’s non-TU leaders probablyhave less knowledge about the grassroots and their aspirations than even any ofthe tainted MPs.
What a senior non-IAS North Block functionary said recently, while ruling outa future for the pension Bill, could be illuminating for all of us and ourillusions. Lamenting the constant endeavour of the finance ministry to keeppushing the envelope of reforms and battling with the Left, he said, almost ingrief, that the only hope of getting anything done lay in getting this sorrybunch out of office. Asked that there seemed to be no hope of a pre-term endingof the UPA, he sighed: "Exactly! We have to wait till 2009."
Since journalists are always a painter of current history, I offer here twowords of experience. My crystal-ball, for whatever it’s worth, says that theaverage Indians, especially the likes of the boy from Fursatganj and the girlfrom Pankinagar are bored and won’t have that much patience (the year’sbiggest and surprising hit was "Bunty and Babli"). And that’sominous for the government, especially its fringe-benefit supporters.
