To take an informed guess at what the UPA can do by way of reforms, consider what its post-Left vulnerabilities are. Would the UPA’s political managers want to test the combination’s majority on the floor of Parliament again — passing a bill would require such a test. Therefore the pension, banking and insurance FDI bills, as well as the less-mentioned coal private mining bill and amendments to forward contracts regulation, will be assessed in terms of the UPA’s risk appetite. After all, cross-voting did help the government during the trust vote. The ruling alliance simply can’t afford a bill piloted by it to not pass parliamentary muster. Politics is and will remain very charged. And the chances of getting the BJP, which is angry and demanding action on alleged bribery of MPs, to support any of these bills are, unfortunately, small. Permitting FDI in multi-brand retail — that is allowing not just Gucci stores but also Walmart stores — is a policy many senior Congressmen find appallingly radical. The SP may not think any differently. So that’s probably out.For certain broader changes, like a civil aviation policy or even a definitive pharma pricing policy, there’s probably not enough time for a full and final version to emerge. The road building project is the UPA’s great failure, with completion rate in decline since the government took charge. But this was never really thanks to the Left. Indeed, T.R. Baalu, a minister belonging to a valuable Congress ally, the DMK, and some terribly imaginative officials in the Planning Commission between themselves share most of the blame. It seems unlikely Manmohan Singh can make a difference to this now.Isn’t there a low-hanging fruit? There is: small disinvestment in PSUs. The Left was for some strange reason dead against it, even though the CMP didn’t bar it and even though the UPA never so much as uttered the word privatisation. No one else, including the SP, has a real problem with this. The DMK did ally with the Left in opposing stake sale in Neyveli Lignite. But minus the Left, and getting its way on other things, it may back off. PSUs like NHPC and DVC have done all or most of their groundwork on small equity sale. Start with those and get a few more in — the government needs the money anyway given the real state of the deficit.
