To the drawing board
India's rise hinges on the Congress party's compatibility with its government and flexibility with the opposition, says N.V.Subramanian.
Torrance, California, 22 December 2010: It is something to celebrate that presidents and prime ministers of the big five powers have found cause and good reason to visit a rising India in the last six months. But their host all along, Manmohan Singh, ignominiously is the weakest Indian PM to date. This asymmetry is destructive.
While honest, Manmohan Singh's government is enmeshed in India's worst corruption scandal so far, related to the 2G spectrum scandal. And as wise and administratively competent as Manmohan Singh is, he has been stymied and stunted by Sonia Gandhi's dynastic ambitions for her son, Rahul.
How can all these anomalies and pulls and pressures be reconciled so as not to affect India's rise more than they already have? Here are some suggestions.
PM & the 2G scam: Manmohan Singh and the Congress leadership can no longer hold out the opposition demand for a JPC inquiry into the spectrum allotment scandal. For all the Congress's bravado during its recent Burari meet, the fact is Parliament was shut down for most of the winter session. The country won't tolerate corruption of this scale, coming on top of the Commonwealth Games and Adarsh housing scandals.
Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi should call a meeting of top opposition and coalition leaders, including L.K.Advani, Nitish Kumar, Mamata Bannerji, Sitaram Yechuri, Sharad Pawar and M.Karunanidhi. The idea is to reach an understanding that the JPC will be set up but that the decision to call the PM before it will be taken with due care and consideration for the eminent office.
The appearance of the PM before the JPC will be precedence-setting. As much as Manmohan Singh appears to be in the dock today, it could well be the turn of one of the opposition leaders when in power.
That prospect will temper any opposition scheme to scandalize the PM before the JPC for political point-scoring. If the government has nothing to hide (as it claims) and is satisfactorily candid before the 2G JPC, there may be no reason for the PM to depose. But the government has to concede the JPC to end the political deadlock, which is hurting India's foreign image and rise.
Rahul after Manmohan Singh: Whether or not it happens, and however outrageous it appears, the Congress party is determined about it. In the Burari plenary, among others, rivals Digvijay Singh and P.Chidambaram were outdoing one another in scheming and facilitating the Rahul succession.
As party general secretary, Rahul Gandhi is not doing the Congress great good. He was a flop in Bihar. His college union-type politics has lost its novelty. Plus, guided by Digvijay Singh (see Commentary, "Fatal attraction,"), he has been considerably unthinking (Varun Gandhi-like) in his remarks, especially in the one put out by Wikileaks.
The Congress will not return to power if the Manmohan Singh government cannot deliver. The Rahul succession question is keeping Manmohan Singh weak. Since Rahul Gandhi will commit political hara-kiri by becoming PM now or anytime before the government starts looking to deliver, and because he is not doing much good handling party affairs, it is best for the Congress that he takes up a Central ministership.
Rahul Gandhi may baulk from taking a particular portfolio. So it would be tidy if he enters the PMO as a minister without portfolio. It would give him the space and opportunity to size up his capabilities as a future PM (this writer's own assessment of Rahul's competence is irrelevant for this piece). Most important, it would remove the present divisions between the Congress party and government and give the political cohesion so direly missing in India's rise.
Digvijay Singh & Sharad Pawar: Digvijay clearly is one of the most divisive of present-day Indian politicians and he is damaging the Congress and the Manmohan Singh government in ways the BJP cannot even conceive. His political tutoring of Rahul Gandhi is an unmitigated disaster for Rahul while giving him powers to torment ministers like Chidambaram.
On the other hand, Sharad Pawar has brought more stink to the UPA government than any other minister save A.Raja. He has mostly been responsible for high and rising food prices over the last two years, and he has brought new embarrassment to the government with onions selling at eighty rupees a kilo. Pawar wanted out some months ago. He should be replaced by Digvijay Singh.
Once handed the responsibility of bringing food prices down, Digvijay will realize that his political future depends on his success. He will no longer enjoy the luxury of condemning the government from the safety of his party perch. Separated from Rahul Gandhi, he would have to prove himself all over again. Who knows, he might succeed where Pawar so spectacularly has failed. It would be a win-win situation for the government as well.
Cabinet reshuffle: But the exercise of strengthening the government even as divisions within the Congress are minimized won't be complete without moving around some ministers. The ministry crying for change is external affairs, where Kamal Nath would be a brilliant replacement for the stodgy S.M.Krishna. Besides his proven competence, Kamal Nath would bring the high energy of a Lok Sabha-elect to the foreign office. Being himself unelected, Manmohan Singh would find merit and satisfaction in surrounding himself with elected ministers, to who projecting India's rise would come naturally.
The point is, the dissonance between the party and the government has to end if the Congress wants to regain power in twenty-fourteen. Ending party-government dissonance and strengthening the PM follow one another. And for the PM to be strong to propel India's rise, he has to reach a situation of minimum accommodation with the opposition, which is absent today.
In other words, the Congress party and the government have to do their political sums all over again.
