Politicians are verbose by nature. Give them a mic and a few people as audience, tell them you want an interview for a newspaper or a television channel, they talk non-stop till you are tired of listening. India’s Politician No1, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is perhaps the prime example of this. (Except, of course, the interview part which Modi has very assiduously avoided). So when a politician clams up at an interview you know something is amiss.
Hindustan Times, one of the capital’s leading English language dailies, was interviewing Kerala’s newly-appointed Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. After going ballistic on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the pathological hatred between it and the Marxists, the Left’s apparently contradictory stance in West Bengal and Kerala vis-à-vis the Congress Party etc., Vijayan had to confront the question that is on everyone’s lips these days. The interviewer asked Vijayan: “It is said that party veteran V S Achuthanandan (VS) is waiting to corner you. How will you accommodate him?”
And the answer: “No comment.”
Vijayan, unlike many of the fellow-politicians, is a not a fire-and-brimstone orator. He measures his words very carefully and seldom can one hear him raise his voice. So when he says “no comment” the two words are pregnant with possibilities. Unfortunately, most of them with dire consequences, one might add.
Now cut to Wednesday, May 25. A stadium-full of people had gathered in Thiruvananthapuram to witness Vijayan, along with his new cabinet, take the oath of office. Seated on the dais was VS with Marxist chief Sitaram Yechuri to his right and outgoing chief minister Oommen Chandy to his left. One of his aides hands VS a piece of paper. As is his habit, VS carefully reads it and gives it to Yechuri.
Yechuri flew to Delhi that evening and told reporters the next day that the paper given to him by VS contained a list of demands by the party veteran. These demands were: He (VS) be appointed adviser to the government with cabinet rank, he be given the post of chairman of the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) and be also made a member of the Communist Party-Marxist (CPM) state secretariat.
But ironical as it may seem, there is a little more inner-party democracy, at least lately, among the communists than the other major parties in the country, including the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which owe everything to their fountainheads, the Gandhis and Modi, respectively. VS may have expressed his wish in writing but Yechuri alone cannot help VS fulfil those wishes. He put it up for the party’s politburo to take a decision. The politburo, in its wisdom, has decided to give VS much of what he desired, including the cabinet rank, but with the caveat that he will not be reporting to the chief minister. It’s anybody’s guess whose wish that might be.
In the Indian context, the governor is the head of a state and the council of ministers act as adviser to the governor. That is how the constitution has envisaged it. But reality is somewhat different because the council of ministers decides everything - or almost everything - and the governor simply okays it. Now to have an adviser to that council of ministers who, in turn, will act as adviser to the governor is taking the advisory role a bit too far. Moreover, considering the track record that VS has left in his wake, it is not very difficult to assume what sort of adviser he would make. An alternate centre of power is definitely in the making.
It was only a couple of years ago that the National Advisory Council (NAC), with Sonia Gandhi as its head, was making news for all the wrong reasons during the Manmohan Singh government. Political pundits are of the view that one of the chief reasons for the defeat of the Congress in the 2014 general elections was the NAC’s unrelenting and often unnecessary influence on governance. Now Chief Minister Vijayan has been saddled with an adviser who has some very strong convictions about how the government should be run. Vijayan’s own views on the matter run somewhat contrary to those of the adviser.
The day he was sworn most English language national dailies carried full page ‘jacket’ advertisements extolling his virtues and the development he has in the pipeline for Kerala. “Personality cult,” said some of the editorial comments by the very same papers that carried the adverts the previous day. It may well be, but it also highlighted the new direction in which Vijayan wanted to take the party and his government. “We will look into the possibility of bringing in private investment for the laying of railway tracks,” says Vijayan. He even mentioned the unmentionable: MNC. VS must be bristling at the thought.
Every new government will have teething troubles. These could last longer and be more or less severe depending on who is at the helm, how experienced she/he is, what kind of legacy has been inherited, etc. A condescending voter, therefore, would give the government time to prove itself. It is often referred to as the ‘honeymoon period.’
In the context of a large country like India this honeymoon can last a year or more. At two years, therefore, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s time is up for this particular indulgence. For a small state like Kerala this period could be over in six months. The electorate in the state has given a decisive mandate to the CPM in the hope that it will cut a new path away from the one that the corruption-ridden Congress trod on and bring economic progress to the state mainly by way of jobs. Taking orders from an extra-constitutional agency will not help matters in any way. Will Vijayan turn out to be Kerala’s Manmohan Singh? Or will he stay his course without being influenced by “outside” forces? The clock is already ticking.
No permanent friends in politics
Seats falling vacant in the Rajya Sabha are filling up in double-quick time thanks to the BJP’s overwhelming majority in the Lok Sabha and the handicap in the upper house. Bills passed in the lower house are getting stuck in the Rajya Sabha where the Congress Party, which enjoys a handsome majority, continues its non-co-operation and, therefore, much of the “action” over the past two years has been in the upper house.
Even someone like Palaniappan Chidambaram, who just two years ago did not want to continue in electoral politics, is in the fray for a seat from the party’s quota from Maharashtra. The BJP, too, has finalised the names for most of the vacancies, majority of them being filled by incumbent ministers in the Modi government.
How precious a Rajya Sabha seat has become can be measured by what the Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal (United) has done to one of its own members. Anil Sahani has been under a cloud for allegedly falsifying travel documents to claim allowances to the tune of Rs2.37mn. The party had till recently defended Sahani and had forced postponement of his prosecution under one pretext or the other. Nitish Kumar had even alleged that the BJP was trying to implicate one of his party men just to embarrass him on the eve of last year’s state assembly elections.
Since the coalition in Bihar has claim to only five seats in the upper house and Kumar has to spare two of these to his senior partner Lalu Yadav and a third to the Congress, the JD(U) is left with just two seats whereas the claimants are at least three. Having given those two seats to Sharad Yadav and Kumar’s own long-time confidante Ramchandra Prasad Singh, the JD(U) is in urgent need for one more seat to accommodate Kishan Chand Tyagi.
The party suddenly realised that if the house ethics committee were to indict Sahani, he will have to resign and the vacancy could be used to help Tyagi back into the house. So the JD(U) decided not to protest when house chairman Hamid Ansari gave his permission to prosecute Sahani. And once the committee gives its verdict, Sahani will be shown the door even as Tyagi could walk in through the same. No permanent friends, only permanent interests, in politics. How true!
