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Journalism of Courage
Four blunders, one brainwave
This column8217;s annual round-up is about the four big political blunders of 1998 and one instance of savvy political thinking.
Costly seat: Mulayam Singh Yadav wanted the Kalyan Singh government in Uttar Pradesh removed in a hurry because he suspected that his formidable opponent in the Sambhal parliamentary seat D.P. Yadav might get the better of him in booth capturing. After all DP too trained in the Samajwadi Party. At his bidding UP Governor Romesh Bhandari midway through the general election installed a nobody like Jagdambika Pal as Chief Minister with scant regard for constitutional niceties. This provided the BJP the perfect opportunity to do what it does best, playing the wronged party with fasts and protests. The two-day Pal government had the shortest tenure in the country8217;s history. Mulayam may have retained the Yadav citadel of Sambhal, but in the bargain his party lost badly to the BJP. The election results established that the BJP secured a higher poll percentage in UPconstituencies where the voting took place after the dismissal of Kalayan8217;s government than those where the voting was in the earlier phase. Mulayam who has had visions courtesy Amar Singh of becoming Prime Minister with Congress support, woke up to reality last month when the SP lost its deposit in the Agra parliamentary assembly by-poll.
Hurry drama: The general elections this year threw up a no-win situation. With a narrow difference between the two sides, Jayalalitha and her band of 27 called the shots. The problem was meeting Jayalalitha8217;s exacting demands. First the BJP leaders took the high moral ground and announced publicly that Jayalalitha was blackmailing them and they would rather opt out of government formation. But when they saw their hard-won crown being snatched away by the likes of Harikishen Singh Surjeet they had second thoughts. The party worked out an uneasy truce with Jaya in a tearing hurry. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajapayee8217;s first 100 days in office were spent largelymollifying the southern prima donna. Being a transparent and honest man, his face reflected his dilemma. If only Vajpayee had waited to form the government later rather than rushing into it at the first opportunity, he would probably have had the last laugh. The second time around, Jayalalitha and other allies would have been in a more chastened mood and not held Vajpayee to ransom since they would have known they had nowhere else to go, but back to the polls.
Onion stew: In August this year, the government8217;s overriding concern was withdrawal of US sanctions and selling India8217;s nuclear tests to the world. Nobody paid much heed when the Civil Supplies Ministry at the secretarial committee on prices in mid-August warned that a shortage of onions in the market was in the offing. Vajpayee was leaving for the NAM meet in Durban. At the end of the month the onion price came up before the monthly Cabinet Committee on Prices, but this time the PMO was preoccupied with Vajpayee8217;s impending visit to New Yorkfor the UN meet. Giving nuclear tests and foreign policy priority over prices was to prove a very costly mistake for the government.
Amateur scores: The remarkable point about Sonia Gandhi is that she refused to stoop to conquer. With commendable foresight she refrained from short-term deals and patch-work adjustments which would have propelled her into the prime ministerial seat. In allotting party tickets for the assembly elections, Sonia refused to be pressured by power-brokers and so-called Congress strongmen, long past their prime. Her emphasis was on youth, talent and suitability. Her confidence in her own party8217;s intrinsic strength paid off. Either Sonia has learnt from her proximity with her late mother-in-law, India8217;s flawed iron lady, or else she is guided by an excellent corporate brains trust. In spite of her thick Italian accent, her faltering Hindi diction, her chic appearance and her politically incorrect paschmina shawl, Sonia seems to understand what most of our ageing politicianskeep forgetting; that you can8217;t take the people of India for granted, not all the time anyway.
