Commentary/ Mani Shakar Aiyar
If Gujral can count well, he'll let the Congress in
Stability of governance depends wholly on the logic of arithmetic.
His United Front is like a pyjama cord: So long as it remains
knotted, it will hold his government up; the minute the knot slips,
the United Front becomes the united front.
The United Front is a figment of imagination - and expediency.
Rajiv Gandhi famously described V P Singh's National Front as
a national affront. The United Front Is a notional front. It is
more notional today than it was ten months ago when, for want
of a candidate, it foisted the hapless and wholly inappropriate
Deve Gowda on a bemused nation.
Where Nehru said "While the world sleeps, India awakes to
life and freedom," Deve Gowda slept his way through his tryst
with destiny. The only thing that became him was the manner of
his going. In his last hurrah, the Kulak from Hassan bared his
fangs as only a vengeful Kulak can - and specifically targeted
Gujral.
Deve Gowda's intimate knowledge of the dregs in his cup of sorrow
had led him unerringly to discerning who his successor would be
at a time when most political activists and analysts were rating
Moopanar's chances as brighter.
Deve Gowda warned Gujral about usurping his - Deve Gowda's -
gaddi (throne). Gujral has not heeded the warning.
Indeed, Gujral's eminent suitability for the post is in such sharp
contrast to Deve Gowda's pathetic unsuitability for it that, before
the end of the forthcoming budget session, Deve Gowda would be
forgotten by everyone - except Deve Gowda.
And that is when Deve Gowda will strike. He will find many allies
within the United (Ho! Ho!) Front: Laloo, certainly; Paswan, of
course; Mulayam, possibly; Jena, yes, there is an off-chance;
and, when the momentum gathers pace, Chandrababu, even Mahanta.
Whatever Gujral's persuasive skills, and however much he might
bend this way and that to accommodate now this one and now the
other, I stake his reputation on the line by predicting that the
United Front would come apart at the seams within six months.
In fact, I am prepared to even wager the subject on which the
process of disintegration will set in: the Cauvery waters dispute.
The Supreme Court, in the dying days of the Deve Gowda government,
ordered the federal government to proceed with the implementation
of the Cauvery Tribunal's interim award.
If Gujral does as told, the TMC will cheer - and Deve Gowda will
jeer. If he does not, Deve Gowda will embrace Gujral but Moopanar
(whose untold acres all lie in the Cauvery delta) will have to
strike - or be struck at.
I will go wrong in this prognostication only if any one of the
other mines with which Gujral's path is strewn were to blow up
first: the fodder scam; the Indian Bank scam; the forthcoming
interim Jain Commission report; it will take up a whole column
to list all the barely-buried grenades.
There is only one way Gujral can protect himself from his friends
in the Front. And that is to get the Congress into his government.
Congress support to Gujral is total - whether from without or
within. The problem, however, with outside support is that those
without can do nothing about disputes within. But if the Congress,
like the camel in the story, is within, the fireworks being stored
up in various UF cupboards could turn out to be damp squibs.
For the ingress of close on a hundred and fifty Congress supporters
of Gujral would so alter the arithmetic of the coalition that
tiny groups of 10 and 20 members would no longer have the menacing
aspect they flaunt today.
Once the Congress is in, Deve Gowda or Laloo or Mulayam or Moopanar
might huff and might puff - but they will not be able to blow
the house down.
A hundred and forty Congressmen will, in the mathematics of governance,
always be seven times the number of 20 TMCwallahs!
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