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April was the cruellest month for politicians anxious to avoid a
summer general election, but it did have its refreshing moments.
The two confidence motions generated some heat, a modicum of
passion and two memorable interventions. Pramod Mahajan brought the
House down with his description of a democracy that consigned the
largest party to the opposition and gave a ministerial berth to a
one-member party. On his part, Atal Bihari Vajpayee underlined the
absurdity of a Lok Sabha where 419 of the 543 members are outside
the Government.
The near-farcical situation does not end here. H.D. Deve Gowda did
not risk a by-election and, instead, chose the Rajya Sabha route to
Parliament. But at least he was no stranger to electoral politics.
Likewise, the indignant claimant to the top job-G.K. Moopanar-was
not as humble a farmer as Deve Gowda, but neither was he entirely a
spring chicken. He was, after all, the Congress' candidate for
chief minister in the 1989 Tamil Nadu assembly election. It is not
his fault that the electorate saw the restoration of Kamaraj as its
third priority.
It is difficult to give a similar benefit of the doubt to the man
who has succeeded Deve Gowda. 1.K. Gujral may be a charming man, a
model of woolly erudition and a "progressive" to boot. But with an
incredible claim to be "normally" resident in Patna and perhaps
abnormally in Delhi's Maharani Bagh, who does he represent? Deve
Gowda was accused of being the prime minister of Karnataka; he has
been replaced by a venerable septuagenarian who is at best the
choice of south Delhi's non-voting classes. The clout of this
latter-day Shah Alam literally extends from Delhi to Palam.
Nor is the analogy misplaced. For three weeks the regional satraps
from Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu
assembled under the United Front banner to anoint their candidate
to the masnad of Delhi. They could have chosen to enter into a
formal coalition with the Congress, which would have blessed the
new arrangement with a measure of endurance. Barring Jyoti Basu
and Laloo Yadav, the three regional parties could even have
considered a joint venture with the BJP and enlarged the Federal
Front to incorporate Parkash Singh Badal, Bansi Lal and Manohar
Joshi.
Of course, they did neither. But worse, encouraged by a
duplicitous CPI(M), they also made it clear that they would neither
countenance Congress participation in the coalition nor support a
Congress government from outside. Their objective was unambiguous:
the selection of a weak and malleable prime minister.
The prevailing state of political correctness deems that federalism
is a good idea. From P. Chidambaram to L.K. Advani, every
politician is in a rush to genuflect at the altar of regional
sentiment.
The backlash against over-centralisation is welcome. But does
federalism decree that regional sentiment has to be at variance
with a purposeful Centre? With the BJP first and the Congress
subsequently, the Federal Front exercised its veto against decisive
governance. The outcome-a prime minister who cannot even choose his
own cabinet-is an outrage on democracy. This is not cooperative
federalism. It is the federal blackmail of India.
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