India's political map redrawn over N-deal

Nine days before the trust vote in the parliament, a realignment of political forces seems to be taking shape, based solely on opposition to N-deal, reports C Chauhan.

Updated on: Jun 22, 2012, 13:41:45 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Nine days before the trust vote in the House, a realignment of political forces seems to be taking shape, based solely on opposition to the Indo-US nuclear deal, as party ideologies and old friendships take a back seat.

CPM General Secretary Prakash Karat, on Sunday, dumped old ally and Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and, after a meeting with Yadav’s arch-enemy and BSP chief Mayawati, declared that the two sides would "cooperate in the fight against the UPA government". There was, however, no immediate word from the Uttar Pradesh chief minister on what transpired at the meeting.

Mayawati has been on an offensive against the UPA, but hasn’t yet stated whether BSP’s 17 Members of Parliament (MPs) would vote against the government when it seeks the trust vote on July 22.

After the 45-minute meeting, Karat hailed Mayawati’s opposition to the nuclear deal. "Mayawati reiterated her opposition to the deal. It was decided that there should be cooperation to stop the deal and in the struggle against the UPA government in this regard," Karat said. His move is also an indication that the Left is not willing to restrict its opposition to the Indo-US nuclear deal to a benign one.

For long, Karat has considered SP a natural ally in UP and remained critical of Mayawati for her occasional associations with the BJP. Karat also defended the SP when the Congress-BSP axis tried to corner it in the run-up to the 2007 UP Assembly polls.

And now, Karat is ironically defending the BSP from a Congress-SP axis, accusing the government of using the CBI to target political opponents.

The BSP chief can be a key player in the number game at the Centre. Beyond the strength of her own party, Mayawati can possibly win over MPs from other parties who would like to contest the next elections on a BSP ticket, given the party’s upswing in the state.

The CPI - which always had a line communication with the BSP - acted on the Left’s behalf and facilitated the Mayawati-Karat meeting on Sunday. Within hours of the meeting, CPI General Secretary AB Bardhan also accused the Congress of indulging in horse-trading to save the government and said: "It is the worst thing that can happen to Indian politics." Condemning the CBI action against Mayawati, Bardhan said: "The timing of filing the affidavit suggests that the government was using the CBI as a political tool."

"The country’s premier investigating agency is being used to switch off or switch on its so-called investigation and prosecution to launch cases at this moment to help the ruling party rig up a majority…," he added. While ruling out any floor cooperation with BJP on the trust vote, terming it a communal party, Bardhan said the Left parties were in touch with TDP, TRS, Deve Gowda and other smaller parties to seek their support for voting against the government. The Left parties have 59 MPs in Lok Sabha.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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