Mayawati takes centre stage in Cong’s survival plan

Of the three uncertain “M”s, the Congress appears to be banking on Mayawati and her BSP the maximum, followed by Mulayam Singh Yadav and his SP. As the uncertainty over Mamata Banerjee’s continued support to the ruling coalition looms large, Congress leaders are into the numbers game and have begun reaching out to the BSP and to a certain degree the SP.

With her 21 MPs, Mayawati is the target number one for the Congress. She has spoken out against the subsidy cut in LPG and diesel price hike, but has given the Congress time till the second week of October when she and her party leadership would decide on their course of action. That gives the Congress a window of opportunity.

The Congress calculation is that at present the UPA is hovering around the 276 mark and without the TMC, it would be reduced to 257. Mayawati’s 21 and Lalu Prasad Yadav’s four will give them a tally of around 282. Mayawati has also said that she does not want to strengthen the hand of the communal forces and that means quite a lot to a beleaguered Congress.

The Congress is busy drawing up a survival strategy after prime minister Manmohan Singh’s big bang reforms. Of course, the party is leaving no stone unturned even if it is confident that Mamata will not take the risk of withdrawing support to the government. She might at best withdraw her ministers at the parliamentary party meeting on Tuesday but she would continue propping up the UPA government for her own political constraints – she needs to project a secular image before her high percentage of Muslim voters.

Even then the Congress does not want to rely blindly on an unpredictable Mamata Banerjee and that is why the party deems it necessary to stitch up these other alliances quietly. Conversations have been initiated with Mayawati. Morever, the Congress finds comfort in the fact that Mayawati who suffered an electoral defeat earlier this year is not really pushing for an early poll unlike the Samajwadis. She is also not in power and has no reason to worry too much about the consequences of accepting or rejecting FDI in multi-brand retail.

Even if the SP has been far more critical of the UPA especially at the party’s recently concluded conclave in Kolkata, the Congress is aware that Mulayam is primarily opportunistic and understands the political value of keeping both camps – the UPA and the Third Front – happy. He is quite capable of pursuing his politics in both directions simultaneously – that of hunting with the hounds and running with the hares.

The Congress understands that Mulayam is looking forward to floating a third front but at the same time the SP leader knows that such a formation would remain a mirage and would not take concrete shape till the UPA-2 really cracks and collapses in a heap. That is why even if Mulayam sounds distant, the Congress will still make an intense effort to reach out to him and his son.

After all, unlike Mamata who makes her MPs abstain during crucial voting in Parliament, Mulayam backs the Congress more wholeheartedly and his MPs participate in the voting.

If Mulayam can be made to continue with his support from outside, then, of course, the numbers do not matter at all. Mulayam brings his 22 MPs to the ruling coalition and along with the RJD, the UPA tally even without the TMC jumps to a healthy 283. True, Mulayam is a votary of early poll and the Congress does not want to be over-reliant on him. He can never be made into a pivot on whom the very survival of the government depends. But Mulayam could be expected to be one of the three or four key pillars which will prop up the government. Though the SP has opposed FDI in retail, it is usually not in the habit of rejecting central policies routinely like Mamata Banerjee.