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The thunderous success of the BJP in UP in proving convincing majority on
the floor of the House flabbergasted all its political opponents. The
ministry-making exercise of chief minister Kalyan Singh gave them a handle
to beat the BJP. What followed was a chorus of condemnation of Kalyan Singh
and the BJP. The most immoral and degenerate parties and leaders dared talk
of ethics in politics. The anti-BJP pen-pushers, who always ignored
criminals in the so-called secular parties like Janata Dal, Samajwadi Party
and others, suddenly recovered their smelling capacity to identify stinking
ministers of UP.
Those who never pointed a finger at the mega-ministry of other states
suddenly started consulting thesaurus to find out the most devastating
adjectives to describe the 93-member council of ministers of UP.
If someone criticises Kalyan Singh's mammoth ministry and inclusion of a
few ministers with a criminal background or making each one of the
supporting MLAs a minister, nobody can find fault with him, for BJP or
Kalyan Singh fairly deserve the criticism. All these cannot be justified.
But criticism is one thing and wholesale condemnation is quite different,
specially because of the background in which all that happened. One cannot
miss or ignore the most important point that UP governor Romesh Bhandari
gave only two days to chief minister Kalyan Singh to prove majority on the
floor of the House. Out of the two, one was a holiday. MLAs outside the
capital had minimum time to reach Lucknow.
In the whole history of five decades of parliamentary democracy, no one was
given so short a time to prove majority. In a similar situation just during
this period, Gujarat chief ministers were given eight days to prove the
majority. It was such a blatant approach on the part of the governor Romesh
Bhandari that even Jyoti Basu had to criticise it.
Why did Bhandari do it? It was to ensure that Kalyan Singh flopped on the
floor of the House, because logistically it was impossible to muster
majority support. Despite this, Kalyan Singh could make possible out of
impossible complexities. But the short time-span provided tremendous
bargaining capacity to the leaders of the breakaway group of Congress,
specially because the sword of President's rule was hanging on Kalyan
government and conspiratorial operations were on in UP Raj Bhawan and UF
Cabinet. The Central leaders of the BJP had directed Kalyan Singh to save
the ministry. In a situation like this, there were two options before
Kalyan Singh - to save the government or let it go. Saving the government
implied an understanding of every MLA in the council of ministers. The
second option was not favoured for reasons to be dealt with later. But had
Romesh Bhandari given reasonable time to prove majority, Kalyan Singh and
his team could certainly have come out with a formula of formation of the
ministry agreed upon by everyone concerned, and he could have given a
different look to his ministry.
How much justified is the criticism of the 93-member ministry? There are
small states in the country having mega-ministries, wherein almost every
MLA of the ruling party has been awarded ministership. There are half a
dozen bigger states, where the size of the ministry is 20 to 25 per cent of
the strength of the assembly. UP is the largest state comprising 83
districts. It has a population of 16 crore. It is much bigger than entire
eastern India. It is also bigger than the bigger states of Andhra and Tamil
Nadu put together. Today, Haryana has 45 ministers in the House of 90.
Taking Haryana's population as the base or proportion, UP could well have
450 ministers. These comparisons apart, BJP leaders like A B Vajpayee, L K
Advani, and Kalyan Singh are not happy with the size of the ministry. But
political compulsions led to the size. Once every breakaway Congress MLA
was,. to be made a minister, others of JD, BSP, Independents could not have
been discriminated against and the number of ministers belonging to BJP
could, not have been less than others for obvious political reasons.
Despite all these, the number of BJP ministers is less than 10 per cent of
the strength of assembly and council which together has 530 representatives
in all. Ninety-three ministers out of 530 is less than 18 per cent.
There is no denying the fact that there are four or five ministers with a
criminal background. But none of them belong to the BJP. They have been
elected on either Congress or BSP ticket. They became ministers simply
because every supporter was made a minister. This could have been avoided
if Romesh Bhandari had given fair time to prove the majority. Kalyan Singh
has allotted them the portfolios which are least exploitable. But if they
want to mend their ways, there is enough scope to work for the betterment
of the state. One noteworthy point regarding the Kalyan ministry is
politically interesting. The reaction in the whole of India and outside is
different from that in UP. It is mainly because of the character of
politics prevailing in the state.
In UP, the support bases of all the three major forces are frozen for the
last one decade. Secondly, Kalyan Singh known as "no nonsense man" has
tremendous advantage over his chief adversaries, Mulayam Singh and
Mayawati. More importantly, the organisation and image of BJP is very
positive compared to the negative image of parties like SP and BSP. It is
in this background there was a groundswell for BJP and Kalyan Singh, when
they defeated the conspiracy of Romesh Bhandari, Mulayam Singh and UF
Government. It mattered very little for thorn, if there are four ministers
of ill repute, having unimportant ministries with them. But outside UP, BJP
sympathisers or general public, who do not have first hand comparative
experience of various political groupings and their characters, form their
opinion merely on the basis of newspaper reports and they are generally
oblivious of the ground realities.
The BJP realised the political repercussions of a hung assembly and
accepted the limits imposed on it by political arithmetic. Nobody with
practical vision can expect hundred per cent BJP rule with less than a
majority at his command, specially at the height of anti-BJPism. Cornered
by extreme anti-BJPism, BJP decided to retain power adopting the strategic
vision of Lord Krishna and Chanakya. The reason for applying Krishna gear
to its strategy was forced on it by the tacticians of anti-BJPism. The
anti-BJP forces have thrust a totally weak and non-functioning government
on the country. The economy of the country is marching towards stagnation,
under the pulls and "counter-pulls of contradictory forces of UF. ISI is
playing havoc in the eastern sector by aiding and abetting terrorism and
separatism and continuing its exercise in J&K.
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