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The verdict of 1996 general election was fractured in a way that
could not have yielded a stable government in the scenario of the
inflexible mind-set of the political decision-makers. The way the
UF government was formed betrayed high level of ad-hocism. The
public was generally apprehensive of the durability of the
government. Nevertheless, a number of political pundits professed
that Deve Gowda government would complete its full term. But
nobody took them seriously. Such was the confidence of the Left
Front that at one point of time, home minister Indrajit Gupta dared
the Congress to withdraw support and taunted that the Congress
would have to continue the support in its own interest.
The exercise of government formation was preposterous. First, the
11th Lok Sabha was too splintered to deliver a cohesive government.
Secondly, the largest single party, BJP, was not there in the
government. The second largest party, the Congress, was not
participating in the government. Thirdly, the biggest party of the
Left Front, which was the third in rank, too opted to be out of
power. Fourthly, 44 member-Janata Dal, hardly a party in the real
sense of the term, was in power. It was the height of political
absurdity. To cap it all, knowing the fate of the government, the
first three offers to different leaders to head the government were
rejected, one by one, within two days.
Deve Gowda was the fourth choice. The 'humble farmer' that he
claims to be, grabbed the opportunity, ignoring the inherent
contradictions, or maybe he was oblivious of the burden ahead.
Then, there was the phenomenon of outside support from Congress.
The device of "outside support" is preposterous for the health of
any government. It has time and again failed at the state and
national level. It generates perpetual crises.
And lastly, the whole edifice was based on a hollow negative slogan
of anti-BJPism. This avowed aim of all the UF partners and its
supporting parties was to keep the BJP out of power to save
secularism. All the UF partners and Congress succumbed to it in
order to save and nourish their Muslim vote bank. When the results
of the general elections started pouring in, and it looked obvious
that BJP is going to emerge as the single largest party, V P Singh
and Left leaders propounded this farcical, negative theory,
ignoring the hard political fact that many of the establishment
parties fought against one another in various states, each on its
respective agenda. Their mandates could not in any way be
converted into a consolidated verdict for the negative 'mission' of
keeping the BJP out of power. This negative mission compounded
with the absurdity.
The withdrawal of Congress support amply proves it beyond doubt, if
at all a proof is required.
The nation debated on secularism at length for a decade.
Pseudo-secularist had been on the run. They tried to fortify their
brand of secularism with this experiment of UF. With the withdrawal
of support, the mission has collapsed once again. Since its
inception, the UF has been full of casteist forces. Nobody can
deny that casteism is the worst form of communalism. What this
country has witnessed in the last 10 months of Deve Gowda
government is the burlesque of absurdity.
Earlier, when P V Narasimha Rao was the PM, on certain matters,
home minister S B Chavan and minister of state for home Rajesh
Pilot had differed publicly. Many parties, including the UF
constituents, ridiculed it, but during the ten months' regime of
Deve Gowda, no week passed when collective responsibility was not
flouted. Scores of examples are still there fresh in memory. Can
one imagine a situation where the PM and the home minister were not
on talking terms for a period?
The common minimum programme (CMP) was drafted hurriedly, but can
one recall any programme that has been implemented by the UF
government? The PM on his part has been concentrating on
blackmailing every Congress leader who tried to question outside
support of Congress. Clearly, he was planning to split the very
party which brought him to power. Gowda made a hint of this to the
Congress leader Vijay Bhaskar Reddy that if Congress decided to
withdraw support, the party would split. This was the last straw
on the camel's back.
It is a well-known. fact that the former Prime Minister P V
Narasimha Rao was well-disposed towards the Deve Gowda government,
for Gowda was fully aware of his weaknesses and the volatile nature
of pending cases. Congressmen in general were aware of this fact.
In a matter of months, the presidentship of the party and CPP
leadership slipped from Rao's hands. Gradually, Congressmen
gravitated towards the new centre of power in the party - Sitaram
Kesri. This was not without a reason. Congressmen thought that
Sitaram Kesri would deal with the Gowda government firmly.
But soon, Sitaram Kesri too was brought in the blackmailing ambit.
I am not going into the merit of the cases. Kesri may or may not
have committed certain offences, but the fact remains that Gowda
targeted Kesri, scared him and pushed him to the wall.
Congress leaders were loaded with the dream of coming to power in
this Lok Sabha itself by Kesri. This could have. materialised, if
Kesri's Moopanar operation was, successful. But that did not
happen. The old and experienced hand that Mr Kesri is, he again
gambled by withdrawing support to UF government. During the last
six months, he has gambled twice and succeeded in wresting two most
important posts of the party. This time, it appeared that
withdrawal may really result in splitting the party. But now that
Sharad Pawar has openly declared support for Kesri, the chances of
split have ebbed away. The President Dr Shanker Dayal Sharma has
given time till April 11 to Deve Gowda to prove his majority on the
floor of the House. In the next ten days, we are going to witness
a series of political developments with unexpected twists and
turns, amazing pulls and counter-pulls, hitherto unseen.
Some observations can be made with certainty. Mid-term poll is
inevitable. The stand taken by UF, particularly its insistence on
the leadership of Deve Gowda has diminished the political
manoeuvrability of UF. On the other hand, Congress has staked its
claim to power. It can hardly afford to review its stand vis-a-vis
the UF government, even if UF agrees to change its leader. Both
Congress and UF depend on one factor for survival: That MPs
belonging to their groups would not like to go for mid-term poll.
In this developing situation, Gowda may be isolated. Already his
support in JD had dwindled to only eight Lok Sabha members. If
after the defeat of the confidence motion for Deve Gowda on April
10 or 11, the President invites Sitaram Kesri to form the
government without the firm commitment of these factions, he would
be tarnishing his image as the President.
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