Political fluidity and the battle to save UPA-II

The question uppermost in the minds of people following Mamata Bannerjee’s withdrawal of support to the UPA government is this: Are elections around the corner?

The Trinamool Congress chief’s action reduced the UPA to a minority. But the UPA still commands a majority. Parties propping it from outside — Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party, together accounting for 43 seats — have not yet withdrawn support.

Though BSP chief Mayawati announced she will review her support on October 10, early elections do not suit her because she is yet to recover the ground she lost to the SP in the UP polls earlier this year. To show her goodwill she did not participate in the September 20 all-India bandh against the government’s recent decisions.

All eyes are now on Mulayam Singh Yadav. A mid term poll suits him. As time goes by, anti-incumbency in Lucknow is bound to take a toll. But the decision to pull the plug is not so simple; Netaji has to contend with a complex web of factors.

Most important, he has to ensure when he pulls the plug, the government actually falls and elections are called. Else, it would be advantage Mayawati. For even without the Trinamool and SP, with Mayawati’s support, the UPA will have a comfortable 286 MPs exceeding the halfway mark of 272.

It is another matter that Mayawati can be as troublesome an ally as Mamata. Or that at every turn, every small party will demand its pound of flesh for support, making the situation untenable.

Managing it will require a high degree of  skills which the Congress had but has not displayed in the last two years. As it is, Congress managers are treading carefully in order to be equidistant from the SP and BSP, lest one gets annoyed and pulls out.

Withdrawing support without ensuring the fall of the government will only leave Mulayam more vulnerable. It could stop the flow of funds from Delhi, which Lucknow needs to implement Akhilesh Yadav’s populist promises . This has gained urgency as the UP government has  already begun to lose steam on the law and order front.

Then there is the sword hanging over Mulayam’s head in the form of disproportionate assets cases in which judgement is reserved.

An adverse ruling could throw him out of the race for PM. The possibility of PMship would likely be the main reason he would want a mid-term poll — in the hope that a highly fractured 16th Lok Sabha could enable a regional chieftain to become PM.

There is another reason why Mulayam , while wanting the fall of the UPA sooner rather than later, may not like to be the one who brings about it. He will be chary of  antagonising the Congress beyond a point. Any chance of his becoming the PM in the future would depend on its support, without which a secular government would not be possible, no matter how depleted its strength.

Mulayam can ill afford to join hands with the BJP, directly or indirectly, or he will  lose his base in UP.

Then there is Nitish Kumar, who for his own reasons, held out the possibility of support to the UPA when he declared that elections would be held in 2014 and that he would back any government that gave Bihar a special package. Read together, it could be construed to mean that he could bail out the government given a set of circumstances.

Alignments are loosening on both sides. After Mamata, the DMK is flexing its muscles. Though it was party to the decision to increase diesel prices and allow FDI in retail, it decided to protest against those very decisions and participate in the bandh against them. It even threatened to withdraw its ministers!

On the other side, contrary to the BJP’s position , its ally Akali Dal backs FDI in multibrand retail. Shiv Sena, the BJP’s oldest ally, did not participate in the bandh either.

The government decided to go ahead with ‘big bang’ reforms, knowing Mamata’s virulent opposition to them, and without giving her the financial package she was seeking which might have mollified her. It may have wanted to shake her off so that it could pursue its agenda unhampered by her opposition. It could also be banking on those powerful forces which want reforms to go forward and may work behind the scenes to “persuade” political parties not to rock the boat. The Union Cabinet is slated to meet next Tuesday to put in place more measures, like power reforms.

For better or for worse, the government has decided its economic course of action which it hopes might also yield it some dividends politically; like like bringing the alienated middle class back to its fold, though this is easier said than done. Middle class youth may feel they will get jobs in Walmart, but a power tariff hike is hardly going to please them.

Even though the fall of the government is not imminent, it has  become fragile and the situation is fraught with the possibility of “accidents”. The Congress may be able to fix numbers at the top but it has to contend with the ground level anger that has been building up against its government. And this will exercise its own pressure on political formations. 

What is more, at the end of the day, governments run not only on the basis arithmetic — this too is not very assuring given the unreliability of allies like Mulayam — but on their credibility to rule.
The government is not unaware of the hazards implicit in the situation and is hastening the process of reforms and is planning to unravel its populist measures like the Food Security Bill by the end of the year.

The present situation can be summed up in two words — political fluidity. The old order is changing and the new alignments are yet to crystallise.

The writer is a political and social commentator