HVK Archives: The week-mode opinion poll
The week-mode opinion poll - The Week
R. Prasannan
()
4 May 1997
Title : The week-mode opinion poll
Author : R. Prasannan
Publication : The Week
Date : May 4, 1997
Market research agency MODE quizzed 1,300 people in Delhi,
Calcutta, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad soon after Gujral was
made PM.
A majority in all the centres favoured mid-term poll, except in
Delhi which overwhelmingly supported the installation of the new
government. Surprisingly, more people preferred the Congress giving
outside support. Only in Bangalore more than half wanted it to join
the government.
If polls are held now the BJP will win. Even in Calcutta 31% voted
BJP, just 31% behind the CPI(M). But it may find itself needing
regional support to make up the numbers to rule.
All figure in %
1. Who was the right choice for prime minister?
:- Gujral - 77%
:- Moopanar - 14%
:- Can't say - 9%
2. Should the Congress join this govt or support it from outside?
:- Join the govt - 44%
:- Support from outside - 51%
:- Can't say - 5%
3. Should the President have called for mid-term polls instead of
installing I.K. Gujral as prime minister ?
:- Yes - 49%
:- No - 49%
:- Can't say 2%
4. Will the Congress force the govt to go slow on investigation of
its leaders?
:- Yes - 64%
:- No - 28%
:- Can't say - 8%
5. Will the Congress withdraw support from the govt?
:- Yes - 51%
:- No - 37%
:- Can't say - 12%
6. Whom should the regional parties support?
:- UF- 49%
:- BJP - 46%
:- Can't say - 5%
7. If a mid-term poll were held tomorrow which party will you vote
for?
:- BJP - 45%
:- Congress - 19%
:- CPI(M) - 7%
:- JD - 4%
:- Telugu Desam - 2%
:- DMK - 4%
:- TMC - 4%
:- Others - 4%
:- Can't say - 11%
Moopanar was still holding out. Front leaders made frantic calls
to him while they waited for Front chairman Deve Gowda to arrive.
Gowda arrived, but not Moopanar. He had been peeved on two
counts-being outrun in the race and being ignored in the
decision-making process. Moopanar and Chidambaram arrived late,
protested, declared that they would walk out of the front, but
finally agreed to stay on, though not in the ministry.
Karunanidhi, Basu, Laloo and Mulayam appealed to them to reconsider
their stand, but Moopanar refused to budge.
The next morning the Front parliamentary group elected Gujral, but
Naidu's mind was still in Western Court, where Moopanar resides.
Once again he called on Moopanar and made an impassioned plea.
Moopanar finally agreed to send two of his representatives to call
on the President along with the other Front leaders.
The Front delegation requested the President to invite Gujral to
form the government, but Sharma reserved his decision. He then
summoned Kesri, who promised that he would support a Gujral
government, but the President was not satisfied. He wanted to know
the nature of support and what coordination arrangements had been
worked out between the Front and the Congress.
On his return Kesri called up Naidu and told him of the President's
dissatisfaction. A crash meeting of the steering committee was
called to which Gujral too was invited. The TMC boycotted it.
Gujral said no to two suggestions: of Congress participation in his
government and of a super-committee to steer his government.
Finally, he agreed to have a two-tier coordination with the
Congress -a parliamentary coordination committee, chaired by him,
with equal representation to the Front and the Congress and a
virtual hotline between the Prime Minister and the Congress
president. As Naidu drove to Rashtrapati Bhavan and Jaipal Reddy
to Kesri's residence, Gujral remarked: "I am sitting outside the
labour room."
Meanwhile, the President summoned Kesri and asked Naidu to stay on.
He wanted both to speak to him in each other's presence. Half an
hour after they left, Gujral received the call.
On his return, Gujral was allowed little time to receive
bouquet-wielding guests. He was summoned to a late-night steering
committee meeting where Laloo insisted on dropping Gowda's friends
like C.M. Ibrahim from the ministry and inducting Sharad Yadav. The
left parties, especially A.B. Bardhan of CPI objected with a
convenient argument-no scam-tainted leaders, please. Sharad could
become a minister after he cleared himself in the hawala case.
As the meeting turned acrimonious, Gujral made a midnight call to
Gowda. The humbled farmer stuck to his plough. Take my entire
team, Gowda told Gujral. Though he wanted to expand the ministry,
Gujral now latched on to Gowda and declared to the committee that
the entire team stayed and ruled out expansion. Soon afterwards,
he left the meeting to catch a few hours' sleep so as to be fresh
to face the President next morning, followed by CPI(M)'s Sitaram
Yechuri and CPI's Bardhan.
That cleared the field for Laloo. If Gujral cannot take any of his
new nominees, drop Devendra Yadav, he insisted. By three in the
morning, bleary-eyed Front leaders finally agreed. The decision
was conveyed to Gujral the next morning.
As Gujral moved the motion of confidence in the Lok Sabha with in
24 hours of being sworn in, the new power equation was there for
all to see. CPI(M) leader Somnath Chatterjee, who that day made
perhaps his worst speech in his Lok Sabha life, got the bashing
from both Congress and BJP benches.
Vajpayee even propounded a new chaturvarnya theory. In the
anti-BJP line up, he said, the CPI(M) was the new Brahmin, advising
the United Front Kshatriya on the rules of governance, with the
Congress Vaishya providing the resource support. The BJP, he said
self-mockingly, was the untouchable Shudra.
But the fact was that the Kshatriyas had slipped much from the
Brahmin's control. The Vaishya has asserted his resource strength.
It was a confident Congress whip Santosh Mohan Deb who plainly
told Gujral to listen to his men.
The question now is: how will Gujral manage? The contradiction
would manifest not only in his governance, but within himself. In
the sixties, he and his CPI friends had veered the Indira Gandhi
government to the left, till Sanjay Gandhi changed its course. Now
what will determine his government's course? His leftist mind? Or
his Congress heart?
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