The bossman of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, M Karunanidhi, went to Delhi the other day and announced that controversial telecom minister A Raja, widely seen as the man at the centre of the spectrum scandal, would not be sacked.
Karunanidhi had the gall to add that Raja was being targeted because he was a Dalit.
The coded message to Manmohan Singh is simple: You have no jurisdiction over my ministers. My party’s minister is accountable to me, not the nation.
Similar tales can be told about the UPA’s other major coalition partners — the NCP, and the Trinamool Congress, among them — and it all leads to one depressing conclusion: governance is going to be very, very tough when ministers are going to be accountable to their state party bosses rather than the prime minister.
Collective responsibility is dead.
Anybody who thought that the last general election had strengthened the Congress’ position within the UPA must be completely disillusioned by now. Not only has the party managed to tie itself in knots over issues (Women’s Bill, et al), with every passing day it is losing steam.
Worse, there is increasing evidence that instability at the Centre is now moving down to the states. In fact, the big change over the last 15 years is not that we have had unstable coalitions at the Centre, but this phenomenon has got entrenched in most states as well. In fact, barring a few exceptions — Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Himachal, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Gujarat — almost every other state in the country has seen coalitions emerging as the norm.
Consider Tamil Nadu, once seen as a straight choice between the two Dravidian parties.
It slid into coalition rule in the last assembly elections and the main party no longer calls the shots. For the first time in decades, the DMK returned to power without its own majority, and now needs the Congress to prop it up from the outside. It is highly unlikely that the AIADMK, if it comes to power the next time, will manage a majority on its own.
In Andhra Pradesh, the next election is likely to see a coalition. In last year’s election, YSR scraped through with a majority primarily because Chiranjeevi’s Praja Rajyam ate into Telugu Desam’s anti-incumbency harvest. The next time, the Congress is unlikely to be so lucky, and may have to settle for a coalition.
Uttar Pradesh seems to be currently under one-party rule, but this is ephemeral. Mayawati’s BSP is a coalition of Dalits, Brahmins and peripheral Muslims, but as Rahul Gandhi builds his party in the state, this internal coalition may not hold. After the next election, UP may be ripe for another coalition.
As for the rest of the states, Kashmir already has a coalition, and so does Punjab. Haryana has seen one in the past (INLD + BJP), and may see them again in the future. Bihar has a coalition, and Lalu Prasad cannot hope to win the next election without a partner in tow.
Nor can current incumbent Nitish Kumar manage on his own, though he has the option of switching partners (Congress for BJP). Maharashtra has been ruled by a coalition since 1995, and Karnataka had one before the BJP won two years ago with the help of turncoats and moneybags.
Kerala and West Bengal have always had multi-party governments, and Orissa had a coalition till the 2009 election. Jharkhand has the worst of all worlds — a coalition that keeps changing with every election, and in between too.
In the north-east, Assam and Meghalaya, the biggest states, are now well into coalition politics, with negative consequences for stability and good governance. This leaves only the tiny states and Goa with single party governments — and they are unstable inherently.
The reason why I have elaborated at length on the spread of coalitions across the length and breadth of India is simple: till recently it seemed as if the central coalitions reflected the power of state-level bosses from various parties.
But this reality is about to change as the states themselves become repositories of shaky, multi-party coalitions. One shudders to think what will happen if every coalition partner in every state starts exerting pressure on the Centre for narrow political purposes.
Signs of this are already visible. Sharad Pawar’s NCP, a coalition partner in Maharashtra and at the Centre, is not only able to rock the Centre on issues pertaining to Maharashtra, but is able to withstand pressure for any kind of accountability to the prime minister.
When the wheat import scandal hit the headlines, the centre could do nothing to Sharad Pawar. When Pawar was asked about rising prices, he could pass the buck and say it was the collective responsibility of the cabinet. His colleague Praful Patel can run Air India into the ground, but he cannot be removed.
As the Chinese say, we are in for more interesting times. If state-level coalitions fail to evolve an internal governance ethic, we have much to worry about.