An agenda please

It is a measure of the unique fluidity of Uttar Pradesh politics that even before assembly polls can actually take place, the government is already changing. Of course, only the brave will wager on the eventual turn of the dice. Ajit Singh8217;s RLD has withdrawn its ministers from the SP-led government, but is the party also withdrawing its support? The Congress is said to be working overtime on an operation to topple the government, yet on paper it still extends support to the SP and is supported by it at the Centre. The exact number of the MLAs in the UP assembly for and against the Mulayam government remains a guesstimate, with the SC verdict on a band of MLAs who defected from the BSP awaited. Only one thing is clear. Ajit Singh8217;s decision had little to do with the support price for sugarcane. There are no issues to be spotted in this nth re-run of Operation Topple in UP.

It is possible to be clear on a few more counts as well. Whether or not the Mulayam Singh government is felled, the Congress is a loser in UP. For all the party8217;s ambitious trawling of troubled waters, after having helped to muddy them in the first place, the Congress is a much diminished version of itself in the state. There are no signs of life in the organisation at ground level and all the slogans hailing Rahul Gandhi8217;s imminent touchdown cannot divert attention from that absence. The national party8217;s participation in tawdry backroom games will only give credence to allegations that it wants to make up for a dimming political lustre by subverting the rules of the game.

Clearly, too, while the politics of fragmentation may be reaching its limits in UP, the attempt to forge larger coalitions is still devoid of political agenda or programme. Ajit Singh8217;s opportune departure from the SP-led coalition in UP only highlights how meaningless the coming together was in the first place.