The Congress and the Samajwadi party may just be withdrawing from their extended confrontation. In fact, it is reliably learnt that Congress President Sonia Gandhi has told her party colleagues in Uttar Pradesh to go easy on the SP.
The Congress seems to be having second thoughts on withdrawing support to the SP government in UP or demanding President’s Rule. It had toyed with the idea after the Allahabad high court undid the BSP “split” by 40 MLAs which had given Mulayam’s government an extremely comfortable majority. It was also on the verge of withdrawing support to the Mulayam ministry.
When Sonia went to Varanasi within hours of the bomb blasts there, she spoke about cooperating with the SP to bring to book the terrorists responsible for the violence. Mulayam Singh Yadav struck a similar note a day later, holding out the assurance that the Centre and the state government would work together.
This should not be surprising, in the aftermath of the sort of terrorist attack that rocked Varanasi. But even senior SP leaders who’ve spoken bitterly about the Congress in recent months were heard appreciating Sonia’s words in the lobby of Parliament.
This thaw could have implications for the bid to disqualify Jaya Bachchan from the Rajya Sabha, which had intensified the bitterness between the two parties, coming as it did after the Amar Singh phone-tapping episode. It is an open secret that someone close to the Congress filed the petition with the Election Commission charging her of holding an office of profit. The EC recommended her disqualification as the UP Film Development Council she heads was not part of the “exempt list” enabling a legislator to hold such a position.
Mid-week, the stage did seem set for her disqualification, but the file has been sitting on the President’s desk, and A P J Abdul Kalam was taking legal opinion. However, Law Minister H R Bhardwaj was reportedly of the opinion that it would be imprudent to pursue the case, because it could gather a host of people into the net, including leaders of the Congress.
Meanwhile, Mulayam struck and got a Bill passed in the UP assembly which expands the list of posts that will not be considered offices of profit, with retrospective effect. The BJP and the BSP criticised the measure but curiously, the Congress was not in the House when the Bill was passed. The legislation, if okayed by the Governor, will also benefit other important SP leaders, including Amar Singh as the head of UP Vikas Parishad and Mulayam’s brother Shivpal Singh. The pace and substance of the Governor’s response will, therefore, send an extremely important signal on the possibly changing nature of the Congress-SP relations.
There are two factors which may have nudged the Congress into a rethink, though the UP unit of the party is by no means united on the line to take and PCC chief Salman Khurshid is a known Mulayam baiter. He still feels the most effective way for the Congress to revive its fortunes in UP would be to take on Mulayam — particularly now that the opinion in the state is turning against him, something indicated by recent local elections. In fact, a recent survey by the CSDS had found a ground-level sentiment in favour of the Congress, though the party has shown no signs of coming up with a plan to cash in on it.
One reason for the Congress’s hesitation is the fear of polarisation. L K Advani’s announcement of another yatra, for “national security and national integration” has compounded the confusion for the Congress. It’s too early to predict what impact a yatra will have in the India of 2006, particularly after Advani’s flip-flop on “Jinnah is secular” and the “back to the basics” agenda of the RSS. But it is also true that some of the issues the BJP plans to raise, like the census of Muslims, a special ministry for minorities and reservation for Muslims in Andhra Pradesh, have agitated the Hindus.
Despite its dismissive rhetoric, the Congress is nervous about the impact the yatra might have in UP. Polarisation along religious lines has tended to cut the Congress out of the picture, as happened in north India in the nineties after Mandal and Mandir, and the party has yet to recover from it.
Even before the announcement of the yatra, the Congress was concerned about the Muslims’ unhappiness on Iran and the Bush visit — and, by extension, the common cause the Left parties and the SP made. The other regional parties in the UPA had also expressed unhappiness over the government’s vote on Iran at the IAEA.
The second reason for the Congress’s rethink is sheer pragmatism. With Ajit Singh firmly on his side, there is little chance of Mulayam’s government being dislodged, even if the Congress were to withdraw its support in UP. Any attempt to go in for President’s Rule might provoke Mulayam to dissolve the assembly and go for early elections with him as caretaker chief minister. The Congress is not ready for polls in UP and could do with more time. Mayawati has given the Congress no reason to expect an electoral tie-up. Rocking the boat at this stage may bring the Congress paltry returns. And with the BJP showing signs of swinging back into agitational mode, there would be pressure from both the Left and the Muslim leaders for the non-BJP forces to stick together.
Those watching UP to gauge which way the wind could blow nationally will, therefore, have to be patient a while longer.
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