Coalition karma

The congress party has just got further notice that the 18 months of power allowed to it before the next general election may prove to be an exercise in disempowerment. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi, in a ‘Walk the Talk’ interview, was remarkably candid about his role in getting the Congress to toe the line drawn by Messrs Karat, Bardhan, et al, on the nuclear deal. If evidence was needed that the ruling party is in danger of completely losing even a modicum of agency, it was there in one compelling sentence uttered by the chief minister: “Frankly, the deal is not important, the government is.”

For the Left — supporting the government from the outside — the deal may have meant something else. But when an important ally of the government washes its hands of the deal, it raises important questions of collective responsibility.The DMK’s opposition to the deal was never articulated in all those tedious months of negotiations with the Americans on the 123 Agreement. It manifested itself at the exact moment when opposition from the Left to it threatened to jeopardise the stability of the UPA and raise the spectre of a mid-term election, a prospect that does not entice the DMK. Lalu Prasad Yadav would possibly have echoed Karunanidhi’s words. His RJD, too, it appears is not ready to confront Nitish Kumar just yet in Bihar.

In the process, the Congress, the party that could possibly have gained from going back to the people after holding firm to a point of principle — the right of the executive to make policy that it believes is in national interest — has lost not just prestige but presence. The Congress will find itself with little manoeuvrability in the 18 months ahead. Not only will the Left keep cracking the whip — if it is not price rise it will be something else — the allies too may not be exactly cooperative. This is not coalition dharma, this is coalition karma.