Retrieving a year

UPA-II cannot afford to waste a year as a lame-duck govt

Given the embattled nature of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) as well as its poor record on performance in the recent past, expectations from its tenth year in office are not high. Indeed, most expect it to be little more than a lame-duck administration, marking time till general elections next year. The danger of such an approach to the country - as well as for the ruling Congress politically - is not small. The economic crisis that India is suffering cannot wait for a year before a government with a clear mandate - if such is given - addresses it. Nor can the Congress always hope for favourable political tailwinds such as those provided last week by the Karnataka election results. Later this year there are elections in four states: Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Delhi. The Congress rules in two, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in two. The two BJP governments seem much more likely to be rewarded by the electorate than the two Congress governments; thus, the prospect of a 0-4 whitewash of the Congress should not be discounted. The Congress' only hope, then, for the year, assuming that the state elections will likely bring bad news, should be to try and recover some semblance of effectiveness at the Centre.

There are some obvious first steps. One is to take genuine steps to free the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) from arbitrary political interference, which has become a political hot potato as well as an institutional disgrace. The government has chosen to set up a group of ministers, under Finance Minister P Chidambaram, to examine how to go about this. Groups of ministers do not have a good reputation for delivering swift results; this one must be an exception. In addition, there are invited observers including the Attorney General and the director of the CBI. The government must consider some way of taking inputs on the process from the Opposition parties as well. A proper proposal on the CBI, one that takes into account various stakeholders, should be prepared within two months - before the monsoon session of Parliament. In addition, the Lok Pal Bill must be pushed through the Rajya Sabha in that session. These two institutional fixes might allow the government to at least claim to be trying to fix India's corruption problem.

Any attempt at retrieving the final year of UPA-II must also include a Cabinet reshuffle, perhaps even a restructuring of ministries, which would make the government lean and efficient apart from removing ministers who have been rewarded for their loyalty and not their effectiveness, and putting into place those who are capable of producing some results on short notice. While legal changes continue to be difficult to pull off given the coalition's numbers in Parliament and the disruptive bent of mind of the Opposition, major administrative fixes remain possible. These are not limited to clearing the big projects that are currently being considered by the Cabinet Committee on Investment. In general, there are broader proposals for price reform that must be carried out. Minimum support prices for agricultural products and the price of urea-based fertiliser is one such area. A government that merely survives will lose. The only time that UPA-II has looked stable and like a government is when it has taken the initiative. A year remains for it to do so again.