Learning the ropes

A befuddled Congress dominated by the bureaucracy is seeking immediate answers to some of its outstanding problems, reports Pramod Kumar

 

Scene 1: Before the Budget Session of the Parliament, Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar had called for a customary all party meeting to ensure across-the-board cooperation on floor of the house. Before she began proceedings, JD (U) leader Sharad Yadav in a moment of light banter said that post UP elections, the Congress high command had lost its grip on the party and that the PM will lose his high standing in the house after the budget session. Both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi were within earshot but decided to let the comment pass. Later at a meeting of the Congress Parliamentary Party, when the Sharad Yadav reference came up, even Sonia took it very seriously.

 

Scene 2: The next episode of consequence took place when Congress heavyweights were brainstorming how best to handle civil society criticism and in its wake, manage the floor of the house during the ongoing Budget Session of the Parliament. During the discussion, minister of state for parliamentary affairs Pawan Kumar Bansal said that there were a total of 39 pending and current bills which needed to be passed in the current session and the party was short of support in the Rajya Sabha, even though they had the numbers in the Lok Sabha. Using the Babu Jagjivan Ram centenary to obliquely acknowledge her gratitude to Yadav and BJP leader of opposition Sushma Swaraj present there, Sonia indicated that despite their different views on the Anna Hazare movement, it had paved the way for clearing pending bills in Parliament.

 

Scene 3: Immediately after these two apparently connected episodes, cabinet secretary Ajit Seth called a meeting of all Union secretaries and took a roll call of vacancies in their respective ministries. Why haven't they been filled, was Seth's refrain. Power generation remains on top of the UPA government's agenda and the sector is being looked into directly by key PMO bureaucrat Pulok Chatterjee, also the prime mover of this get-together. Seth went on: why is it that public sector heads of major power companies like NHPC and NHAI, despite clearances accorded by the Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB), had not been appointed? The meeting resolved to fill up the vacuum by March 31, but that date has come and gone. In other words, the bureaucracy has the upper hand in the equation vis a vis the politician in the current UPA dispensation. In an era of inflation, scams and a government which has at times appeared directionless, the steel frame has come to dominate decision making irrespective of the political consequences.

 

Therefore there is an element of truth in Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar's assertion that barring a few ministers, most of the Union cabinet is putty in the hands of their civil servants.

 

Sharad Yadav insists he will stand by what he said. "This is my observation but everyone in the Congress knows it is the truth, though no one can say it openly in a monarchic party. People like Rajesh Pilot who could have asked this question are no more.'' Counters Congress secretary Pankaj Sharma, "Everyone knows how much Nitish Kumar listens to Sharad Yadav.''

 

Having said that, there are some pointers in the wind which suggest a political drift. The problems Congress faced while trying to form a government in Uttarakhand and Harish Rawat's open rebellion revealed that, perhaps, 10 Janpath's grip on the party is somewhat loosening.

 

According to well informed Congress sources, the party has been hit by an old malaise, severe factionalism, a time-honoured tradition which began rearing its head after Sonia Gandhi went abroad for her health treatment in late 2011. In her absence, party work was assigned to her close aide Ahmed Patel and senior party man Janardan Poojary. On the other hand, Digvijay Singh had teamed up with Rahul Gandhi. Digvijay has been forced to go underground after the rout in UP. Party comrades, who are not exactly his supporters, used this occasion to instal their own chief minister in Uttarakhand. The series of bizarre incidents that followed that installation in Dehradun, has certainly made a dent in the commanding heights that 10 Janpath enjoyed not too long back, admit insiders.

 

The meeting called by Rahul Gandhi to take stock of what had happened in UP too turned out a damp squib because not too many tough questions were asked and neither were there any game changing replies. The AK Antony committee has been asked to freshly reexamine what went wrong in UP. Ironically, this is the same committee which yet to submit its findings on the results of the last assembly elections! Nonetheless, its importance in so much as the party high command trying to reassert its authority on the rank and file, is not lost.

 

No Congress heavyweight leader is ever likely to be spotted at the party headquarters on 24 Akbar Road in the near future, partly because the media is ever-present there. Officially, the party denies any talk of factionalism. Congress leader Shakeel Ahmed told TSI, "There is no question of factions within India's oldest political party,'' he told TSI.

 

As far as the party's grip over parliamentary affairs is concerned, Pawan Bansal has already indicated that they lack the numbers in the Rajya Sabha to pass crucial bills – or for that matter any bill. Bansal told TSI that they were prepared to discuss all issues with the opposition. "We will introduce the bills but the responsibility to pass them lies with the opposition,'' he said.

 

The list of pending bills include the Food Security Bill, Mines Bill, the Anti-Graft Bill, Lok Pal Bill, the Whistle Blowers Protection Bill, Money Laundering Bill, the Judicial Accountability Bill, the Education Tribunal Bills and several others which are considered crucial. Importantly for the government, many of these bills have to be piloted by key Union ministers who have personally invested a lot of time at the irdrafting stage. All told, the UPA government appears to be up against a fresh set of problems. With BJP-ruled states hammering in the point about 'good governance', the Congress is yet to come up with anything as significant as Atal Behari Vajpayee's highway development initiative, even though Congress leaders like BK Hariprasad say that the party will have a lot to show for when the time comes.