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| Sunday, 5 February 2006 |
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Bend it like Congress Between the Lines by Kuldip Nayar I MAY be reading too much into the cabinet reshuffle in New Delhi. But the changes effected make me believe that Congress president Sonia Gandhi has begun the exercise of choosing her party candidates for India's President and Vice-President, the two offices falling vacant by next August. My hunch is that Dr Karan Singh, a tall Congress leader, is being saved for the office of President. He has not been inducted in the cabinet, despite his seniority. He himself is reluctant to join the cabinet. More than that, Sonia Gandhi does not want his name to be smudged in any way. The politics of ministerial position would have dragged him to one controversy or the other. The founder of an international Hindu forum, Karan Singh would be acceptable to the BJP. Significantly, he has never said anything against Hindutva. The other point in his favour is that if there were to be a contest - it would be close - Karan Singh would be the best choice from among the Congress leaders. He has not rubbed people on the wrong side. (Karan Singh says that his horoscope predicts his elevation to the office of President.) The Congress candidate for the vice-presidentship is likely to be Sushil Kumar Shinde, till recently the Andhra Pradesh governor. He belongs to the scheduled caste whereas Karan Singh is a Rajput, the upper caste. Such considerations are important in the multi-ethnic society that India is. Shinde lost to Bhairon Singh Sekhawat last time because the latter was better known. Since the vice-president is elected by the two houses, the Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha, Sonia Gandhi's expectation is that Shinde in the cabinet has more opportunities to fraternise with MPs than he would have had if sequestered at Hyderabad. However, Shinde's induction may be ominous for Ram Vilas Paswan, a scheduled caste leader. He may be axed. He displeased the Congress when he refused to join hands with Lalu Prasad Yadav in the state election in Bihar. After losing power at Patna, Lalu Yadav has been pressing for Paswan's exclusion from the cabinet because Lalu blames him for dividing lower caste votes, Lalu Yadav's forte. The fact that Lalu Yadav has been able to get his Man Friday, Minister for Company Affairs Ram Prakash Gupta, elevated to the cabinet status shows that Lalu Yadav's 24 members in the Lok Sabha are crucial. In any case, the Congress has in Shinde a tall scheduled caste leader and the exit of Paswan from the government would not be much of a loss for the Congress. The most intriguing part of the cabinet reshuffle is the manner in which Sonia Gandhi has got finally rid of her coterie and that too at one go. Was she tired of them _ and their self-importance? They still believe that they have her ears. It is one thing to be at 10 Janpath where Sonia Gandhi lives and another to be in the government wondering whom Sonia is consulting. They know in their heart of hearts that she would not have let them go if she really needed them. Probably, they had outlived their utility. Their worry is that there may be another coterie, indifferent if not hostile to them. The argument that Sonia Gandhi wanted more of her own people in the council of ministers does not hold water. Every person is hers. Who is Manmohan Singh anyway? And his admiration for her was visibly clear at the press conference. Not that Manmohan Singh could have reshuffled the cabinet without Sonia Gandhi's consultations. But he has revived the old Congress practice whereby the Prime Minister consults the party president before constituting or reshuffling the cabinet. Mrs Indira Gandhi was the one who stopped the practice. After becoming Prime Minister in 1966 with the help of Congress president K Kamaraj, she sent the cabinet list to the President of India straightaway without even showing it to Kamaraj. Rajiv Gandhi did not have to do so because he combined both offices of Prime Minister and the Congress president. So was the case with Narasimha Rao. The reshuffle has marred Manmohan Singh's reputation in some way. The re-induction of Shibu Soren from Jharkhand was a mistake, whatever the pressure. It indicates that Manmohan Singh, too, has come to believe that corruption is a way of life in Indian politics. Probably, the Prime Minister has got convinced that if the tainted Lalu Yadav can stay, why stall Soren? This only confirms that a clean economist and bureaucrat like Manmohan Singh is learning the tricks of trade: Discretion is better part of valour. Unfortunately, the cabinet reshuffle has cut short the debate on the Supreme Court's judgment on the dissolution of the Bihar assembly last March. Governor Buta Singh had dissolved the assembly on the ground that no party was in a position to attain a majority. The Supreme Court has held by 3-2 that the governor's act was mala fide. It also criticised the Government of India for taking Buta Singh's "fanciful assumptions as gospel truth." No doubt, the governor was interested in helping Lalu Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal form the government with the backing of the Congress. But he was equally determined to stall other political parties from coming to power. He became a part of the plan hatched to keep the non-Congress parties out. The Supreme Court has rightly hit the governor on his knuckles. The Supreme Court's advice to the government to verify the facts before accepting the governor's report is pertinent. But in this case New Delhi was in fact goading the governor. My short trip to Patna a few days ago confirms this. Three central ministers phoned Buta Singh on his mobile many a time. He himself said in press interview that he did "what he was told to do." The sequence of events testifies this. Buta Singh sent the report for fresh elections on Sunday, May 22, a holiday. The central cabinet met the same night at 11 p.m. and approved the governor's recommendation on the dissolution of the assembly. The cabinet's resolution was e-mailed to the President, then at Moscow. He received it at 1.52 a.m. and faxed his approval at 5.30 a.m. itself. Why this indecent hurry? The Supreme Court has said that the governor "misled the council of ministers." If this is so, the mere resignation is no punishment. Shouldn't there be some way to teach a lesson to those who play havoc with the constitution and the nation? Maybe, the institution of ombudsman when it comes into being can do something about such motivated acts. Till then what happens? If tainted ministers cannot be dropped from the cabinet, probably governors like Buta Singh can also get away with the crime they commit.
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