Washington Temptation

Washington Temptation
By Seema Mustafa

Who is the one person, or actually the two persons, who are clear about going ahead with the nuclear deal? The Prime Minister and his deputy, Deputy chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia. For them the government does not matter, the elections are irrelevant, so long as Dr Manmohan Singh can emerge from his prime ministership with the laurels he is looking towards Washington for. A personal victory, in their analysis, far outweighs a national defeat.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has gone into a sulk. He does this periodically to convince his mentors in the United States that he remains completely committed to the nuclear deal, and in the off chance that this will work as pressure on the Congress leadership. Of course when the storm blows over, as it has several times in the past couple of years, and the Congress decides not to pursue the nuclear deal, the PM emerges from the sulk with his aides insisting that contrary to their own of the record briefings earlier, Dr Singh had never even thought of resigning.

Of course the Congress and its prime minister does not care that each time the nation is plunged into a crisis. Hundreds of man hours have been lost in the process with paralysis overtaking the non performing government as ministers and allies rush around trying to break the impasse. Files are not cleared, as the country is placed into election mode because of the petulance of one person, and a Congress leadership that is unable to take a political call. This despite the near unanimous decision of Parliament that the nuclear deal was not in consonance with national interests, and the government would do best to throw it out of the window. In the process it might have to throw the baby (read PM) out with the bath water, but then sometimes these decisions are necessary.

Dr Singh throws a little tantrum almost on every eve of the UPA-Left meeting on the nuclear deal. One wonders why he does not do so in the intervening period, but that is a question that can await an answer. So this time too he let Sonia Gandhi know----and this might have been denied by the Congress but certainly not by the PMO that spread the rumour in the first place----that he would resign if the Left was not halted in its tracks, and the government not allowed to take the safeguards agreement to the IAEA. The same issues and the same debate was reopened, and to cut a long story short, it was made clear to the government that the Left was not prepared to budge. And that CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat was categorical that the IAEA safeguards agreement should be discussed in its entirety by the committee and ratification by the Board of Governors could not be on the government cards until then.

The government went into pressure mode that took the following form: PM will resign; elections are inevitable; Samajwadi party will support the Congress; there is no question of the government backing off from its intenational commitments; the allies are with the Congress and so on so forth. If the picture was as clear cut as this, the Congress should have taken the decision by now, going full steam ahead into the elections. But obviously there is a big gap between the rhetoric and the reality. The Samajwadi party is hedging its bets, the allies do not want snap polls as all of them face defeat in their home states and would like to party a little longer, and the Congress party leaders are bitterly divided about going ahead with polls at a time when inflation is hitting double figures, and the poor are collapsing under the weight of the UPA's economic policies.

So who is the one person, or actually the two persons, who are clear about going ahead with the nuclear deal? The Prime Minister and his deputy, Deputy chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia. For them the government does not matter, the elections are irrelevant, so long as Dr Manmohan Singh can emerge from his prime ministership with the laurels he is looking towards Washington for. A personal victory, in their analysis, far outweighs a national defeat. For lets face it, Dr Singh is not likely to be prime minister again and has a reputation to maintain with the US. For if this was not so, the government today would not be playing old games over the nuclear deal but would be rushing to implement measures to contain inflation, and during the interim period bring relief to the poor. However, all this has been put on the side table while the Prime Minister pushes the US case for a deal that has been effectively rejected by Parliament.

Unlike the Congress that is flaying wildly, the Left is hitting back with some well aimed punches. The first punch was rendered when it made it clear that it would not allow the government to go to the IAEA Board of Governors with the safeguards agreement that it had not seen. Repeated attempts by minister Pranab Mukherjee proved futile, and it soon became clear to even the fools in the Congress party that the Left did mean business, and had actually meant business all along. The government then started maintaining that the Left might withdraw support but would not vote with the BJP against it in Parliament. Then came the second punch. The Left let it be known that once it withdrew support it was "on the other side" and would happily vote out the government. This would ensure a roadblock for the deal in the Nuclear Suppliers Group. The third punch was delivered quietly to the Samajwadi party whose leaders Mulayam Singh Yadav and Amar Singh have been flirting openly with the Congress. These unscrupulous UP leaders were told that they could get out of any third front options that the Left would explore in the future, if they decided at this stage to support the Congress.

The Prime Minister disappeared through it all. He is not well, his aides said in a manner that encourage the media to further promote the sulk theory. Sulking and throwing tantrums is perhaps an inherent component of the PMs personality. If that be so, his advisors should encourage him to use the sulks to ensure more respect from the Congress and his colleagues in the cabinet. And if he needs issues to exercise this option, he could throw an occasional tantrum for the poor farmers still without relief, for the Bhopal victims still struggling for compensation, for the thousands inGujarat living as second class citizens…the list would fill a column. There is no dearth of issues in India as the Prime Minister will find once he moves his gaze away from Washington.