“Misery acquaints a man with strange bed-fellows,” so said Shakespeare in The Tempest. But in India its politics that brings strange bed-fellows together. If you find the Left parties and the rightist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on one platform on the issue of the Indo-US nuclear deal or Mulayam Singh Yadav and Sonia Gandhi sweating it out to cobble together an effective majority in parliament, don't be surprised! This is not misery, but politics of convenience! But what has caused this tempest so as to force these strange bed-fellows under one gabardine? It is the issue of ‘national interest' that has raked up this storm. In national interest, the Left is bent upon creating a political crisis and forcing an early election, which their ideological rival BJP thinks it will win. The Congress is taking everyone for a joy ride on the issue of the nuclear deal, again in national interest. The Samajwadi Party for whom Congress was a pariah has come to the rescue of the government in national interest. The nation is being pulled apart left, right and center to save its interest. What an irony? But politics is the game of being ironically effective. Nuisance has its value too in politics. And who knows this better than the Left parties. During the four years of alliance with the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA), the Left has been blocking rather than facilitating any common minimum program initiative. They refused to be a part of the Cabinet, because they could not compromise on their nuisance value. They did not allow their leader Jyoti Basu to be prime minister because they realize that nuisance and responsibility can't go hand-in-hand. They raised objections to the disinvestment law, took to the streets when fuel prices were hiked. They even objected to the government's loan waiver program for the farmers. Now they have withdrawn support to the government, leaving the ruling coalition gasping for breath. On Tuesday it will be clear whether the government will survive or a fresh election will be forced on the voters. So what exactly the Left parties are up to? Their nine-point objection to the 123 Agreement – as the Indo-US civil nuclear cooperation pact is called – is baseless as it is based more on context than on content. Their objection is more ideological, stemming from the concern that the Indian foreign policy will shift from the Leftist Sino-Russian block to toe the US line. At present Congress seems to have an upper hand as a number of surveys have shown that the Indian people are in favor of the nuclear deal. It would be a politically apt move by the Congress to go to the polls as a victim of Left's ideological attack rather than try to form a fractured coalition. The attempt to stay in power is going to be a sellout as it has already emerged. The Congress has already accepted a long-pending demand of Rashtriya Lok Dal Member of Parliament (MP) Ajit Singh to name the Lucknow airport after his father. It's attempt to woo another regional party Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) failed because TRS at present can't see anything beyond their demand for a separate Telangana state in the south. National Conference of Kashmir has its own set of demands. Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, another regional party, wants reinstatement of its leader Shibu Soren as union minister for coal after he was removed following his imprisonment on murder charges. In fact Soren is not alone in trying to cash in on the Congress predicament. Rumors of horse-trading is rife. It is said that MPs are being bought for as much as $6 million each. Even a single vote counts. So at least six MPs languishing in prisons for charges raging from murder to extortion are waiting for the trust vote day to walk free since the Indian constitution allows convicted lawmakers to participate in a parliamentary vote. The Congress party fears that it may lose the election, because of the rising inflation and economic slowdown. The party should, however, realize that it won't be any better for it even if it wins the trust vote. How many holes can it plug, and for how long? Comments: [email protected] __
