Congress turncoats

The Congress Party is tickled pink at the prospect of playing gatekeeper to the disinvestment process. Tuesday8217;s Supreme Court verdict, ruling that the government would require to get parliamentary approval for disinvesting oil majors HPCL/BPCL, has in fact energised the entire Opposition. When Left stalwarts now demand a fresh look at the disinvestment process, it can be attributed to the familiar clarion call of ideology. But what is the Congress Party8217;s excuse?

Has the party forgotten a man called Manmohan Singh, who as finance minister of a Congress government set in motion the entire liberalisation process in the country? Surely the party knows that every one of its governments in the various states has happily, and often extremely efficiently, sold public sector units with nary a glance over the shoulder? So why this great charade now? The party argues that it is only opposed to the selling of strategic assets like oil companies, but it cannot be unaware of the serious blow that has now been dealt to the entire disinvestment process in both the short term and the long. In moments like these, the party should ask itself what its stand would have been if it had been in power. What would it have done in the national interest? Surely, if it is convinced that reform is the way to go in a rapidly globalising world, should it not own up to this fact even as a party in the Opposition? What8217;s more, the argument of adopting an anti-liberalisation stance in order to curry favour with voters may be a seriously flawed one. Voters, too, could be made to perceive the advantages of a professionally managed economy.

What India needs is consensus and continuity in decision making on certain crucial areas like the economy. To achieve this would require responsible political parties to look beyond the Treasury Benches/Opposition Benches divide and work together for the larger good. This becomes even more imperative after Tuesday8217;s apex court verdict which has all but placed the disinvestment process under House arrest.