Commentary/Janardan Thakur
Many of the UF constituents may support BJP to avoid polls
There is again a smile on Sitaram Kesri's face, but the smile
may not last very long.
For the moment he is patting himself on
the back for getting H D Deve Gowda out of his way. That had been
Kesri's sole plea to Indrajit Gupta on the eve of the confidence
motion, as Indrajit Gupta himself revealed. But can the 'old man
in a hurry' now grab the chair he has been eyeing so hard?
Even
Kesri's partymen agree that he committed a big blunder, and
very few doubt that the Congress would be the biggest loser in
the gamble. Right now the situation is fluid and almost anything
could emerge from the melting pot. But for the moment Kesri has emerged, by common
consent, as the villain of the piece.
Kesri has precedents to cite: the Congress had withdrawn support
to two governments before him -- once in 1979 when Indira Gandhi
brought down Charan Singh, and the second time in 1991 when Rajiv
Gandhi toppled Chandra Shekhar. What Kesri forgot was the vital
difference between then and now. On both the earlier occasions,
the Congress withdrew support to force a mid-term election. What
is more, the party was solidly behind Indira Gandhi and Rajiv
in their decision. Which is not the case now.
Kesri may think he can manipulate his way to the country's top
job, but he is in no position to lead his party to the polls.
In fact, no party is prepared to face elections at this point,
perhaps not even the Bharatiya Janata Party, despite the fact it may
gain the most in a mid-term poll. But the party that is
most frightened of an election is certainly the Congress. It knows
it would end up with mud on its face.
The fear of going back to the people in less than a year was the
primary reason why the outgoing prime minister did not recommended
Lok Sabha dissolution. Another reason was the Finance
Bill, which is yet to be passed. Deve Gowda was so bitter as he went
out that he would hardly have bothered what chaos and instability
followed him, but he acquiesced in the all-round concern about
averting financial chaos and elections at this juncture.
Sure enough, they would like to cobble another government, sooner
than later, if only to escape elections and to keep the BJP from
growing bigger. A frantic exercise has been
on for several days, with the key government cobblers moving from
one crowded parlour to another, almost round the clock. What shape
the new creature might take nobody knows.
Much as Kesri
has striven to break the UF, he has had almost no success
so far. On the eve of the confidence motion, he had finally come
down to just one demand -- remove Deve Gowda. But that was perhaps
just his way of getting the throne vacated. The real hurdle still
remained. The mantra given by the ailing former prime minister
Vishwanath Pratap Singh from his bed in Apollo hospital ('just
keep the Front intact') seemed to be working still. If the UF
stays together, which would be quite a wonder in itself, the Congress
may well find that it has no choice but to support another united
front government under a different leader.
What the UF has
to do in the next few days is not only to keep together but to
throw up a new leader acceptable to all. Quite a tall order, considering
that there are so many jockeys backing their own horses. The Raja
of Manda has been pushing his favourite, Ram Vilas Paswan; the
Marxist veterans have been lobbying hard for I K Gujral, and sections
of the Congress party have been plugging for their former colleague,
G K Moopanar.
And Kesri continues to insist
that the new coalition must be led by the Congress -- in other words,
he must be the prime minister.
He and his supporters know that
at least the Left parties would not accept his leadership. Kesri
would not mind if the Left breaks away, except that the UF is
not ready for it.
If the UF-Congress deadlock is not resolved soon, the ball
would once again return to the President's court. Knowing that
Dr Shankar Dayal Sharma likes going by the book, it is not impossible
that he might call upon the Bharatiya Janata Party to try and
form a government yet again. Which would start a whole new ballgame.
The BJP is in its own agony: Can it succeed whether it failed
last time, or will it be another 13-day wonder? The party knows
it is gaining with every discomfiture on the other wide of the
fence, but it would like some more time before it can make its
final assault on the Centre.
The BJP is not really a believer
in the theory that coalitions have become a permanent feature
of Indian politics. It would like to rule on its own, but that
would take some more time. In the meantime, the party has no inhibitions
about breaking bread with whoever responds to its call. It would
welcome more Kanshi Rams and Bansi Lals.
Can the BJP do it? If it really comes to the point where there
is no option but the polls, many of the UF constituents
might jump on to the BJP bandwagon.
The next few days could see any number of surprises and somersaults.
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