Federal coalition king

Plain Politics

So it has happened. After days of nail-biting suspense, Mulayam Singh Yadav has become the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh for the third time.

However, there are two differences. This time, the Amar Singh effect is much more visible. It could be seen in the galaxy of industrialists who were present at the swearing in, from Adi Godrej to the Ambani family to the Sahara parivar.

Whether this means Mulayam Singh has become more cosmopolitan in his outlook, or whether industry sees Uttar Pradesh as recovering under his benign guidance and will therefore bat for him, remains to be seen.

There is another big difference which is not immediately visible. Since he was CM last, in the manner of the feudals of old, Yadav has conducted a number of discreet alliances.

Foremost is his son Akhilesh's wedding to a girl from a Thakur family. An alliance between a Thakur and a Yadav would have been unthinkable even a couple of years ago (in the late 1980s for instance when the Mandal agitation was at its height and Yadav, an important actor).

His relationship with Amar Singh has further cemented a connection with the Thakurs and has endured the test of time and political jibes.

So in terms of a political base, today there is no one who can gather together a bigger coalition of castes than Mulayam Singh Yadav.

What does all this mean for his term as chief minister in the months to come?

Let's get one thing straight. You might cavil at Mulayam Singh's patronage in the past of anti-social elements like Aruna (Anna) Shankar Shukla (who was under detention under the National Security Act until Mulayam Singh Yadav helped him become a member of the Legislative Council) or Atiq Ahmad and Mukhtar Ansari.

You might not like the fact that old friend and currently Prevention of Terrorism Act detenu, Raja Bhaiyya, could come out of jail fairly soon now.

But put that aside for a minute. As a chief minister, Mulayam Singh Yadav is a serious administrator in the mould of predecessors like N D Tewari.

He might say he is a socialist. But one of the first things Yadav did during his first spell as chief minister was to begin an ambitious programme of privatisation of lossmaking state-owned units beginning with the UP Cement Corporation (1991).

The privatisation of a host of sugar mills in UP followed and Mulayam Singh Yadav was pilloried and cursed for snatching the rotis from the mouths of labourers because he did not flinch from his mission even when the state government had to resort to firing on resisting workers at the Dala Cement Factory, Mirzapur.

His most vociferous opponents then were members of the BJP in the state assembly. The argument? He was selling the family silver. Sound familiar?

It was during his regime in the 1990s that the process to bifurcate the UP Electricity Board was begun.

He took on the not-inconsiderable might of state government-employed power sector engineers and began the process of reviving the power sector through painful reform. The reforms were of course stillborn.

But the important thing is the realisation on the part of a chief minister of UP that the state could not run the power sector and without power there would be no investment and no money.

Only a self-confident politician could have forced through such reforms. Yadav's biggest asset was that he was tactful with his bureaucracy which realised that he was no rural dumbo and it was better to be on his right side.

When he was chief minister, he was on the phone from 6 am, touching base with the district magistrate and the superintendent of police of every district he thought could have a problem.

Bureaucrats recall that Narayan Dutt Tewari used to do this, but after that this practice stopped.

Even the other performing chief minister, Kalyan Singh, relied on district level political leaders rather than bureaucrats for accurate information.

Mulayam Singh Yadav has his work cut out for him. Just last week, the Allahabad High Court passed strong strictures against the state government for not being able to control lawlessness.

The petitioner, Agra-based trader Surendra Kumar, said he had been intimidated by criminal elements forcibly extracting a weekly 'goonda tax' from him.

He said the police were hand in glove because they got a share of the collection and therefore no one paid any heed to him.

The Court asked senior bureaucrats to appear before it to explain. Whether Mulayam Singh Yadav will be able to intervene (or whether he will want to intervene) is still an open question.

Much more serious is the state of finances of the UP government. The state has borrowed nearly $1.8 billion from the World Bank for various projects.

The Uttar Pradesh Forestry Project with a loan of $ 65 million began in 1997 and was completed in July this year.

Lucknow is mulling over how to wangle the second phase of the project without any ideas about how the first phase will be repaid.

The $236-million Power Sector Restructuring project, which is due for completion in 2004, is nowhere near reaching its deadline let alone repayment.

There is another problem. That is the perception that the coalition that Mulayam Singh is presiding over, will not be stable because of all the big guns who are part of it.

The crunch will come when he announces his cabinet. Then members will thow tantrums, threaten, cajole and blackmail. Those who will be left behind will not necessarily be his true friends.

Mulayam Singh is likely to put on the back burner the issue of settling scores with Mayawati. But because he is a wrestler, settle scores he will, even if it costs him the job he has so coveted. UP is going to see a lot of action in the coming months.