Facing the music

The politics within the Congress is making the situation worse. First, an incorrect perception has gone out that the PM does not have the party?s support, writes Pankaj Vohra.

The price rise issue, coupled with some other matters, seems to have put the Congress-led UPA government on the defensive. In fact, it’s for the first time in two years that both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi are facing inconvenient developments that are affecting their popularity. In a country where governments have been voted out on the issue of high onion prices, the Centre can no longer take the price rise lightly.

HT Image

A strong message needs to go out that the government means business and hoarders, blackmarketeers and profiteers will not be allowed to go scot-free. What makes matters worse for the Centre and the state governments is that no major raid to detect hoardings or to penalise hoarders has been conducted so far. In order to conceal their own inefficiency, the CMs of Congress-ruled states have tried to put the blame on the Centre, and particularly on a law that was enforced during the NDA regime in 2002. The CMs perhaps think that people are fools and will buy this argument in the absence of any proactive action on their part.

By shifting the blame on to the Centre, the CMs have also exposed the UPA government’s own limitations. If indeed the NDA-enforced rule was leading to a situation necessitating the price rise, what did the Centre do in the last two years to undo this damage? There is also a section of Congressmen who want to put the blame on Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar. It is easy to hold him responsible but what needs to be known is what was the Centre doing all this while and why did the ministries connected with price rise not anticipate this crisis?

Politically, the issue has not been handled well at all. By convening a meeting of the Congress CMs, the Congress president’s advisors may have thought that a clear message would go out that the party was worried about the hike. But the reverse impact seems to have taken place. The ‘aam aadmi’ perceives, rightly or wrongly, that the Prime Minister is driven by the Congress president in most of his decisions. This may not be true but this is how perception sometimes differs from reality. Since the Congress CMs cannot attack Sonia, they have chosen to hit out at her by putting the central government on the mat.

The politics within the Congress is making the situation worse. First, an incorrect perception has gone out that the PM does not have the party’s support. This is not true and Sonia trusts Singh more than anyone else in the Congress. But unfortunately this perception has got stronger, especially after the sequence of events that led to the government’s decision to put proposals for disinvestments of public sector units on hold.

The CMs meeting has not helped in easing matters. Over the years, the public distribution system has virtually collapsed. In cities like Delhi, there are hardly any ration shops and the ration card is no longer a proof of identity, the voter’s card having replaced it for all practical and legal purposes. The emphasis has not been to help the common consumer but to help those who have wealth. The Congress, from being a left of the centre party, an image it had acquired during Indira Gandhi’s ‘garibi hatao’ days, is no longer perceived to be an avatar of that ideology.

For one, prices at government outlets are different from those at private stores and governments, whether at the Centre or in states, have been able to do little about this. On top of this, opposition parties like the BJP, which specialises in creating false perceptions and spreading rumours like that of the PM quitting, are having a field day. They have created the perception that the government’s ineffective handling has led to price hike. The Congress CMs have gone on to reinforce it.

It also appears that many disgruntled and ambitious persons within the Congress are trying to thrive on the instability that has been created through inept handling by the party and government managers, whose actions are proving to be an embarrassment for the Congress chief as well as the PM. The truth, though, is that the patience of politically astute Congressmen is running out and they increasingly believe that Manmohan Singh could prove to be a liability for them when the next elections take place. They are afraid to state it up-front since they know that Sonia backs him fully.

But politics is a game where ground realities change very fast. In 2004, there were very few politicians, including those in the Congress, who believed that the NDA would lose. Being one of the very few journalists who predicted an NDA defeat months before it happened, I had noticed that even senior Congressmen found this incredible. And when the UPA came to power and Sonia renounced the prime ministership, the party had no option but to accept her choice for PM.

However, events of the last few months show that many Congressmen want to distance themselves from decisions taken by the Prime Minister. It is their way of showing that they do not endorse some of these decisions. It is not because of sycophancy alone that Ajit Jogi had voiced his desire to see Sonia as PM. There was certainly an agenda that he shared with others behind that statement.

Sonia has so far steered the party well and there is no reason why she should not continue to do it. But there are powerful interests within and outside the Congress working to weaken the PM. These sections need to be immediately countered. The Congress has always been able to overcome threats from other parties, but it falters when the threat is from within. It is time for both Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh to introspect. Between us.