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In the first months of his office there should be little reason for the Prime
Minister to feel apprehensive about the support he will get from his alliance
partners. They are grateful that they have spared themselves from another
election. You can even feel the sigh of relief. All the units of the United Front
have affirmed their resolve to support him. So also has the Congress. Nor will
the recalcitrant Tamil Maanila Congress ditch him. As of Today Inder Kumar Gujral
is on safe ground.
What he should be worrying about is the time before the general election. One of
the factors he should not ignore is that all these parties, first of all the
Congress and then the United Front partners, will have to fight the elections
whenever they are held. When that happens the attempt of all of them will be to
gain the maximum advantage for themselves. A number of them may not want to fight
the elections as United Front adjuncts. It would be nearly impossible for
fourteen of them to have an electoral pact. Even if they are on the best of terms
with each other (which is not the case) they would have what is now called
"friendly contests".
The Congress will have a different calculation. The best dream of the Congress
will be to emerge as a party which can rival the BJP. It would like to be one of
those who can call the political tune, that is be able to form the government
largely on its own. Whether this will turn out to be so one cannot say but this
will be its aim. In the risky business he undertook with his famous, letter of
March 30, Sitaram Kesri took a major step in. this direction. He has taken the
Congress out of its old subdued role of the Deve Gowda period and given it a new
resolve. The first step was to dispense with Deve Gowda, whom he did not see as a
friend either of himself or of his party.
Kesri's present role is to stabilise and strengthen Gujral. But this is not the
role which the Congress can play for all time. It likes to see itself as a
national party. It will be looking for a major undertaking for itself. It has to
live for itself, not for the United Front. This is the most important political
lesson Gujral as well as Sitaram Kesri will have to learn.
This means that Gujral will continue to get the Congress support until the
elections are called. When the elections come, maybe in one year, maybe in four
years, the Congress would, like to be on its own and try to get for itself the
maximum electoral support. Work towards this aim has to start now (given that the
Congress does not suffer any disaster like a new seam or a split). Till the
elections are called the Congress has to build itself among those to whom it will
go for the vote. For that it will want to build a strong constituency for itself
- among the poor, the dalits, the minorities, the middle class and the business
community. To vote for the Congress they must have faith in it. The business of
the Congress between now and the elections would be to pull these sections closer.
The work of the Congress could have been easier if it had a leader who would fire
the imagination of the people, someone like Indira Gandhi or Rajiv Gandhi. What
the Congress needs today is an Atal Behari Vajpayee, whom it can present as prime
ministerial material. It does not have one. So the Congress has to find a
programme to hold aloft to the people. If the Congress is unable to have a mass
leader or an inviting programme it will have to be one of the parties holding on
to the United Front. Its fear will be that in this role it will gradually shrink
into a small unit and then disappear. If it has to live it will have to be as a
major party. Will I. K. Gujral see it as a threat to the political set-up he
heads? Will he want to build a bridge that will satisfy the Congress as well as
hold his system together?
This is where Gujral could have difficult moments with the Congress. The Congress
would like to set down an agenda and tell the people that at least it is
associated with taking the right steps for their welfare. The United Front units
will like to draw the credit for themselves and the Congress for itself. The
Congress would like to initiate many issues to catch the imagination of the people
and make it known that it is this programme that it is working for.
This is going to be the pattern. In this the first party with which it is going
to get into confrontation will be the Leftists. Judging from what has happened so
far, the Leftists will go on pushing down the Congress and even following the
supposed Deve Gowda line of breaking it up for that is one sure way of cutting
down its influence. The Leftists no doubt want to fight the BJP but not by making
the Congress stronger. They would try to give the Congress the role that would
only keep the United Front afloat. The United Front units, like the DMK, TDP and
AGP, have seen a new opportunity coming in their way. The difficulty for the
United Front set-up is that the Leftists in West Bengal, Kerala and' Tripura will
want to build their own strength, They have to, fight only the Congress in many
states. This means that the regional parties which want to gather strength and
help the United Front to remain in power, will have td fight the Congress as much
as they will have to fight the BJP. In Tamil Nadu there is a third alternative
apart from the Congress and the DMK. The relationship between the Congress and the
TMC will need to be watched. With Narasimha Rao no longer making policy, the
Congress and TMC could come closer.
In Kerala, the Congress will have to fight the Left Front. In Andhra it will be
in competition with the TDP, In Orissa the Congress will be fighting the Janata
Dal. In Assam it will be the AGP. In West Bengal the Leftists and the Congress
have already been in perpetual fight. These are the states where the BJP will not
be a major factor. In Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Himachal, the
Congress party's main rival will be the BJP. In Haryana the fight will be with the
Haryana Vikas Party and the BJP and in Punjab with the Akali Dal and the BJP. If
the United Front units also fight the Congress in these states, it will be in an
ideal situation for the BJP as happened in some of the recent byelections. So in
some states the United Front units will be fighting the Congress and in some
others putting their shoulder with it. The situation is different in UP where the
Congress is weak and will have to have an alliance with some of the United Front
partners, like the Samajwadi Party.
If the Congress wants to maintain, if not increase its overall present allegiance
of 30 per cent electorate, it will have to be fighting both the BJP, in which the
United Front units can help its as well as the UP units. This is the peculiar
situation that has come about after the new UF ministry came into being. It is
good for all the present governing parties that I. K. Gujral is the Prime Minister
because he has the ability to soften the competition between the Congress and the
United Front parties. Skirmishes have started between the Congress leaders, like
Kesri, and the Leftist leaders, like Harkishen Singh Surjeet. These are likely to
get more intense. Surjeet has lost some ground recently because of the TMC affair
and the image he has projected as a Big Brother but that will not keep the CPM
away from fight with the Congress. This will also be one of Gujral's deep
concerns. Interesting politics ahead.
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