HVK Archives: Lust for power
Lust for power - Hindustan Times
M. N. Buch
()
22 June 1996
Title : Lust for power
Author : M. N. Buch
Publication : Hindustan Times
Date : June 22, 1996
THERE is the story of the man who was shot in the gut and
was asked whether it hurt. His reply was: "Only when I
laugh". The present shenanigans of our politicians also
hurt only when one laughs. Here we have a group, the
United Front, which has been cobbled together with the
specific objective of keeping the BJP out of power,
whose leader, Mr Deve Gowda, stated as late as on May
31, one day before assuming office, that the group would
decide on a minimum common programme shortly. In other
words, the different components of the United Front
entered the electoral fray as rivals, sometimes deadly
rivals, though even quite early they and their main
supporters, the CPI-M, had stated that their objective
was to keep the BJP out of power. Obviously, they were
not confident of forming the government, otherwise they
would have said so and would have produced a minimum
common programme prior to the elections. Their suddenly
finding themselves in the seat of power has revealed the
hollowness of their claim to be united because they do
not even now have an agenda of government which they can
place before the people. To give two examples, will
Mulayam Singh Yadav's suggestion that people from neigh-
bouring countries, mainly Bengali Muslims from
Bangladesh, should be welcomed to India prevail, or will
the -vowed policy of the AGP to identify all foreigners
in Assam, mainly Bengali Muslims from Bangladesh, and
oust them prevail? Will our national interest in
maintaining good relations with our neighbour, Sri
Lanka, prevail or will the DMK's known sympathy for LTTE
prevail? There are thousands of such questions which
have not been addressed by the United Front but which
will have to be faced in the near future. =
The fact that the United Front came together only to keep
the BJP out of power and not so much to provide good
government to this country, the fact that many of its
components prefer to support from outside rather than
participate in government, the fact that some of the
components cannot stand the Congress as a supporter of
the United Front, all suggest that the Unite Front and
its members are opportunistic and power hungry and that
regardless of conflict between the groups they will be
anything to be in power. Ironically, it is these people
who condemn the BJP as power hungry for reacting
positively to the President's invitation to Atal Behari
Vajpayee to form the government.
As the largest single group in Parliament, but without an
absolute majority, the BJP could and perhaps should have
declined the invitation. If, however, it accepted the
invitation it cannot thereby be condemned as being power
hungry. An attempt to form the government is the
prerogative of the largest single group in Parliament in
a situation in which no party has majority. =
What has been the role of the Congress in all this? It is
the second largest group in Parliament, though trailing
the BJP and its allies by over 60 seats. With CPI-M
categorically refusing to have anything to do with a
government led by the Congress there is no way in which
it could form the next government. This left the Congress
with three choices:
(1) To be neutral in Parliament in the matter of forma-
tion of a government, abstain from voting on a motion of
confidence and sitting in Parliament as the largest
opposition group-At a subsequent stage, depending on the
merits of the situation, the Congress could vote for the
removal of the government. If, however, the performance
of government was reasonably good the Congress, as a
responsible opposition, could continue to adopt a
positive attitude towards the government.
(2) The Congress could join the United Front, make it a
stronger organisation both politically and numerically
and become a partner in government so that a stable
and viable government could be in office.
(3) The Congress could adopt an opportunistic and
manipulative attitude and support the United Front from
outside. Because it holds the key to survival it could
virtually force the United Front to dance to its tune. =
The Congress being what it is, manipulative,
opportunistic, intriguing and power hungry, it naturally
chose the last course. Of the adjectives used above,
power hungry is the most appropriate because the Congress
can not countenance being out of power for even a minute.
Before the ouster of the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh
post-Ayodhya, very senior State Congress leaders told me
that unless the BJP government was dismissed soon the
Congress party will disintegrate. The message was clear.
Power is the only binding force in the party. What the
Congress has now achieved is that it has kept out of
office the only party it fears as a national rival, BJP,
it has installed a puppet whose very existence is depend-
ent on the continuing support of the Congress party, it
has ensured a weak regime whose room for maneuver is
so
limited that it cannot possibly provide good government
to the country and thereby it has set in motion a process
in which it hopes that the ensuing chaos will bring the
people back to the Congress fold. As an example of
political chicanery what the Congress has achieved cannot
be bettered. As a fraud perpetrated on the people it
certainly cannot be matched. But is it a piece of
political wisdom?
The Congress in the recent past has done well only in
those States where there is bipolarisation between the
Congress and the BJP. In Madhya Pradesh, for example,
electoral fortunes have been swinging back and forth
between the BJP and the Congress, with the result that
one finds a genuine opposition which can successfully
aspire to power and a ruling group which knows that if it
is voted out in the next election it has a good chance of
being voted back in the election to follow. It is only in
the multi-polarised States such as Bihar and Uttar
Pradesh that the Congress party has been virtually
destroyed, not so much by the BJP as by the various
splinter groups which have broken away from the Congress
and in turn have damaged the party. Encouragement of
multipolarisation, therefore, is not in the interest of
the Congress party.
I suppose the desire to gain power is legitimate in
politics. What is not legitimate is to be hungry for
power, with avarice supplanting morality and the ends
justifying the means. At the banquet table of power the
Congress is the greedy guest at a Roman orgy. The rest
are rank amateurs.
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