Congress somersault

A few weeks ago when speculation was rife in political circles that Manmohan Singh would not be included in the Congress party8217;s economic committee, this newspaper likened it to staging the Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. That is what the Congress did when on Friday it constituted the much-delayed quot;economic groupquot; to review the economic policies and to identify the areas where quot;course correctionquot; is required. Singh8217;s omission is glaring, particularly when the committee consists of 44 members. The explanation that he had opted out of the committee of his own volition and would join it at a later stage is unlikely to carry conviction with the politically savvy. That the committee is headed by Pranab Mukherjee conveys as significant a message as Singh8217;s omission. This is because Mukherjee and Singh have come to be identified with two strands of thought in the Congress. Thus when one gets ascendancy over the other, it signifies the triumph of one thought over the other. Singh is universally recognised asthe initiator of economic reforms with his pioneering budget in 1991. Several governments have come and gone since then but the essentials of his reforms remain intact.

Ordinarily, it should have been a matter of pride for the Congress that the very parties which opposed Manmohanomics are its votaries now that they are in power. But things are not so black and white in the Congress which believes that reforms do not bring in votes as underscored by the defeat Singh suffered in the South Delhi Lok Sabha constituency. Those sections in the party which are not enamoured of reforms and do not take a kindly view of the importance Singh gets have joined hands to isolate him and, possibly, to snatch his position as the leader of the opposition in the Upper House. What better way to achieve this than by espousing the cause of the poor in whose name the party had built up a public sector-driven centralised economic system. It is a different matter that it served the interests of the party and the bureaucratic set-up it spawned, rather than the poor. The party mistakenly believes that the sure-shot method to return to power is to once again take up the cause of the poor. It is onlyin this context that Singh8217;s exclusion makes sense.

What the Congress does not realise is that reform has already acquired a momentum of its own and it is not easy to stop it in its tracks. See how the Swadeshi brigade in the ruling BJP finds itself unable to prevent the government from liberalising the economy and opening more and more sectors to foreign investors. Whether liberalisation enjoys popular support is a matter of opinion but there is no doubt that most people consider it a fait accompli. It may be a mere coincidence that the day the Congress announced the constitution of the committee, the employees8217; union in Air-India made a strong plea for an early privatisation of the national carrier. If anything, it suggests that reforms are no longer perceived as anti-labour or anti-poor. This itself should have emboldened the Congress to stick to Manmohanomics and to pressure the government to carry on the reforms it had initiated. But by relinquishing its brand equity, the Congress has reached a situation where it is neither for nor againstreforms.