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No rush to form government, says Pawar

Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sharad Pawar indicated that a Congress-backed attempt to topple the BJP-led government at the Centre is not in the immediate offing.

Such an attempt, the senior Congress leader said, would make sense only when his party was in a position, numerically, to provide a 'viable alternative'.

Till that happens, said Pawar, his prognosis was for a period of instability. If the Congress acted hastily just now, he further indicated, the consequences could be a fresh election -- which, in his opinion, the country did not need.

"I don't know what will happen to the country, and I don't know what will happen to the economy, if we have elections every six months," Pawar told a television channel. "I don't want the Congress to act in such a fashion that there will be chaos in the country -- and ultimately, the common man would suffer."

Pawar, who is also a member of the Congress Working Committee, brushed aside suggestions that his party did not want to make a push towards government formation. "I can promise you that when we have the numbers, we will not wait another day."

For now, the Congress had only 141 MPs, he pointed out, arguing that to form a government, the party would need to put together support of another 16 or 17 parties, which could be based on issues or on specific programmes.

Pointing out that the Congress was a 'responsible party' which wanted to provide a stable government to the country, the Opposition leader said unless his party improved its own position with the masses, especially in those states where it had done badly in the last elections, it wouldn't be able to deliver the goods.

Pawar indicated, through his answers, that the problem at the moment was not securing support, but rather, of holding onto it once the Congress had formed an alternate government. Referring to the CPI-M offer of support as an example, Pawar said he was not sure a Congress government could bank on that support in the event it was to take economic decisions that went against the CPI-M ideology, whether in the insurance sector or some other.

He said his party wanted to provide a government that, unlike the incumbent one led by the BJP, would be able to take 'frank and free decisions' with the interests of the nation at heart. "So it is not a matter of numbers, but of commitment, that commitment should be there from every corner before we think of forming a government," Pawar said. "There is no sense in showing unnecessary hurry."

Taking a jibe at the BJP's election promise of a strong prime minister and an able government, Pawar remarked, ''Poor prime minister, he looks like a harassed person, I wonder why?"

The trouble with the government, Pawar said, was that various leaders changed their stance every day, and some ministers apparently thought that their job was to act like Opposition members -- this last, an obvious reference to the AIADMK contingent.

Asked about the problems he himself has had with party president Sonia Gandhi following the defeat of a party nominee in last month's Rajya Sabha election, Pawar conceded that the defeat had come as a setback. ''Fortunately," he added, "we sat together, we resolved all issues and now the situation has changed.''

When pressed on the issue, Pawar said the incident was now a closed chapter. "Very few people know this, but we didn't have the votes to win two Rajya Sabha seats, we were relying on outside support and that was not forthcoming," Pawar said, admitting, however, that the failure to win the second seat had come as a big blow to him personally. "There was cross voting, which caused the defeat," he said.

Saying that all actions taken by the party president following the debacle were in the best interests of the Congress, Pawar said, "She has taken decisions, people have gone into details, I don't know what exactly they have conveyed, but certain actions have been taken and the chapter is closed."

Denying that there was ever any misunderstanding between him and Sonia Gandhi, Pawar said he was a CWC member, entrusted with an important job in Parliament by the party president herself, and that he therefore failed to understand what the fuss was all about.

Denying Samajwadi Party general secretary Amar Singh's claim that Sonia Gandhi's views on government formation was different from his own, Pawar said, "It was a collective decision, we took a conscious decision not to form the government, we wanted to let the BJP show their capacity to run the country."

Asked about the upcoming election to the Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker's post, Pawar felt there was a strong possibility that the BJP would accept Congress nominee P M Sayeed, on the principle that the post should go to the largest Opposition party.

Asked about the failure of the government to table the Women's Reservation Bill, Pawar said the government lacked courage, and was facing tremendous opposition to the Bill within its own ranks. Pawar added that the BJP statement that the Bill was not tabled because of a change in the Congress stance was "a total lie".

"If, as the BJP says, we are the culprits, then why doesn't the government simply table the Bill? If the Congress opposes it in Parliament, the entire country would know and condemn us for it, so why is the government not challenging us on it? Because it knows that the opposition to it is within its own ranks," Pawar scoffed.

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