Unity games politicians play

Last week Ghulam Nabi Azad reciprocated the gesture Farooq Abdullah once made for him. It was with the National Conference8217;s support th...

Last week Ghulam Nabi Azad reciprocated the gesture Farooq Abdullah once made for him. It was with the National Conference8217;s support that Azad managed to make it to the Rajya Sabha in 1996. Now the Congress has extended support to the senior Abdullah to get elected to the Upper House.

Abdullah would have made it anyway. He was only one vote short of the requisite number and he would have managed to wean away one of the independents, now part of the ruling alliance. By lending support to his old friend, Azad kept his flock together, killing two birds with one stone. From Azad8217;s perspective, it was good strategy. But it is bad politics.

For the people of Jammu and Kashmir, the arrangement must appear strange. So angry were they with the NC8217;s misgovernance that they booted the party out and voted for whoever was in a position to defeat it. All through the campaign, the PDP and Congress candidates ripped Farooq Abdullah and his party to pieces. Now even before the week is out, they are seen shaking hands with Abdullah and facilitating his entry into the Rajya Sabha.

This is not to say that politicians of competing parties should not talk to each other. The trouble is that they cooperate only when their own survival is at stake and rarely when it involves the interests of the people they represent. Look at the unity they display when it comes to passing Bills to hike their own salaries and perks!

The Rajya Sabha election in Uttar Pradesh has highlighted a similar unity of politicians across party lines. It also showcases the worrying trend of an increasing number of businessmen entering the Rajya Sabha. This time, Lalit Suri is in the fray. Arms dealer Suresh Nanda was there till he withdrew at the last moment.

Note the irony of the situation. The ruling party was not confident of winning the 11th seat, which it held, the byelection being necessitated only by T.N. Chaturvedi8217;s resignation. It backed industrialist Lalit Suri, who was not only seen as a potential winner, but boasted of the support of MLAs from all parties 8212; virtually a consensus candidate. Cross voting has now become the bane of the UP elections. After the last Rajya Sabha elections, every MLA was seen in a Qualis.

This time the political leadership hit upon a plan of circumventing the MLAs and leaders of all parties were united on it. The aim was to ensure an 8216;unopposed election8217;. This worked in J038;K, where the ruling and Opposition leaders sat down and decided that there would be only four candidates in the fray 8212; all four would be elected unopposed.

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Future deals will be cut with leaders of parties, instead of individual legislators

The idea was that the candidates need not approach individual MLAs for their support. If there was a quid pro quo, it would be between the leaders. In UP, leaders of all parties had decided that there would be 11 candidates for 11 seats. It would save the BJP the embarrassment of having its dissidents vote against the official candidates and it suited other parties as well. The agreement almost came unstuck at the last moment, however, with the BJP dissidents queering the pitch by fielding Suresh Nanda. Now he has decided to opt out because of technical reasons. At the time of writing, the Election Commission has yet to take a view on the matter.

But this is likely to be the trend of the future. The moneyed will make arrangements in order to win votes, and the deals are likely to be cut with the leaders of parties, instead of with individual legislators.

There was a time when the BJP suggested open voting in the Rajya Sabha elections as a solution. But it could not muster enough support to bring in the requisite legislation. Open voting may make the task of the leaders easier by sidelining the MLAs but it does not address the dominance of money power in the country8217;s politics. And doing away with the secret ballot certainly negates the spirit of democracy.

The MLAs may take money in return for their votes, but it is not uncommon for political parties to 8216;sell8217; the Rajya Sabha tickets 8212; some even sell nominations to the Lok Sabha. In the nineties, when there was a rapid turnover of governments, Lok Sabha MPs would remark that it would be better to spend Rs 2-3 crore on buying a Rajya Sabha nomination and be assured of six years in Parliament, than to spend this amount on fighting the Lok Sabha election and have the government collapse in 11 months!

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While there is no will for solutions, and undoubtedly there are no easy ones, all this is rapidly changing the character of the Rajya Sabha. This is bound to affect the quality of the debate and the ability of the Upper House to act as a check on the Lok Sabha, if required.

The Rajya Sabha is now becoming a House which will have the likes of Vijay Mallya, R.P. Goenka, Lalit Suri, as its leading lights. Earlier, politicians represented lobbies in Parliament. Today the lobbies are right there, inside, signifying the takeover of the House by interest groups.