Flip-flop show

In both Haryana, where the Congress has decided to withdraw support to the Bansi Lal government, and Tamil Nadu, where it has forged an a...

In both Haryana, where the Congress has decided to withdraw support to the Bansi Lal government, and Tamil Nadu, where it has forged an alliance with the AIADMK, it is the credibility of the once preeminent political party that has suffered a setback. The party8217;s decision to ditch the Haryana Vikas Party government is as surprising as its decision less than a month ago to prop it up.

In both cases, the party has exposed its rank opportunism: as it did earlier in the matter of reinstatement of the Rabri Devi government in Bihar. Considering the present low level of Bansi Lal8217;s popularity acirc;euro;rdquo; a factor that weighed with the BJP when it decided to part ways with the HVP in June acirc;euro;rdquo; only total disregard for public opinion could have enabled the Congress to come to his rescue.

By issuing a whip to the party legislators to vote for the HVP government8217;s continuance last month, it repudiated all that it had been saying about the Bansi Lal regime for the last three years. Now by withdrawing support to the government on the plea that Bansi Lal had not gone in for dissolution of the Assembly as promised, the Congress has exposed its proclivity to change sides as and when it suits it. Surely the voters are unlikely to be amused by the flip-flop show.

Whether the HVP eventually merges in the Congress as Shankersinh Vaghela8217;s party did in Gujarat or not, Bansi Lal8217;s unpopularity is certain to rub off on to the Congress. What is on display is the Congress leadership8217;s inability to reconcile the differences in the party and stick to its principles.

The same kind of weakness is evident in the party8217;s electoral tie-up with the AIADMK. It is a measure of the Congress8217; helplessness that it had to accept just 12 seats out of a total of 40 offered by Jayalalitha. Gone are the days when the Congress used to contest a majority of the seats in the Lok Sabha from the state and the AIADMK for a majority of the seats in the state legislature.

Jayalalitha surely knew that the Congress could not have insisted on more seats given its dismal condition owing to the dissipation in its ranks following the formation of the Tamil Maanila Congress. While the Congress had no other realistic option in the highly politically-polarised state, it will have to pay a price for its alliance. The brazen manner in which she had been extracting her pound of flesh from the BJP government as long as she was in the ruling coalition could not have endeared her to the voters.

Besides, she is seen as the one person who caused the present political instability by pulling down the Vajpayee ministry. The disparaging remarks she made against Congress president Sonia Gandhi will haunt the party particularly when other parties rake them up.

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The Congress-AIADMK alliance is far from homogeneous and is, in fact, a bundle of contradictions. Jayalalitha8217;s failure to accommodate Subramaniam Swamy8217;s party can prove costly considering his credentials as a mischief-maker. It would be a curious spectacle to watch the Communists of both Indian and Marxist varieties contesting the elections in alliance with the Congress while they would be pitted against each other in neighbouring Kerala. All this speaks volumes for the cynical disregard the Congress as indeed the other parties have for political morality.

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