Several years ago, Pranab Mukherjee (he was finance minister in Indira Gandhi’s government) was asked what kept the Congress politicians united in spite of their diverse and often contradictory views and interests. Mr Mukherjee’s reply was short and simple: The glue that keeps the Congress leaders together was their desire to stay in power. As always, the astute Congress leader had hit the nail on the head. This was amply evident once again in last week’s confidence vote in the Lok Sabha.
The victory of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) in the confidence vote could not have been achieved without the Congress leadership’s meticulous planning and execution of a strategy to not only keep its own flock together, but even win over the members of Parliament (MPs) belonging to other political parties and alliances. This is an old Congress trait. Out of power, Congress leaders may look completely lost, pathetic and groping for an agenda to stay together within the same fold. But once in power, the same Congress leaders behave differently. If their continuance in power is challenged, they get together temporarily sinking their differences, allocate specific responsibilities to ward off the threat and each of them functions as though he is part of a well-knit team. The target of keeping the government intact soon becomes their first priority.
Till Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made it clear to Sonia Gandhi that he would like to go ahead with the India-US civil nuclear deal even if the Left parties withdrew support to his government, the Congress attitude towards the entire issue was quite ambivalent. There were many leaders who felt that risking the UPA government for an agreement with the US was not a prudent move. But their stance on the nuclear deal became immaterial once they were convinced that Manmohan Singh was in no mood to change his mind on the issue, the Left parties had decided to withdraw their support and that the government had to be saved. All that mattered to them was how to secure the necessary votes for the government in the Lok Sabha.
Indeed, the alacrity with which the Congress leaders moved to ensure the UPA’s victory in the Lok Sabha vote showed that Sonia Gandhi’s Congress was no different from the one that was led by her mother-in-law or even by PV Narasimha Rao in the early 1990s. The Narasimha Rao government faced two confidence votes and won both of them, of course after using controversial means. In the process, he maintained the Congress record of its prime ministers never losing a confidence vote in the Lok Sabha. The Congress leadership under Sonia Gandhi also functioned like a well-oiled machine and ensured that the party’s record on that score remained unblemished. For a party that has to face general elections in less than a year from now, the realisation that its leaders are quite adept at planning political strategies and manoeuvres must have been a cause for some satisfaction.
That, however, is not the only message for the Congress from last week’s confidence vote. Within the Congress, Manmohan Singh is now being viewed a little differently. Till a month ago, Manmohan Singh was seen by most of his party colleagues as an economist who entered politics by accident. Having become finance minister in 1991, Manmohan Singh did a remarkable job by ushering in economic reforms and bailing the economy out of an unprecedented crisis. Many of his friends thought that he would leave politics after the Congress lost the 1996 general elections. But Dr Singh stayed on in the Congress and in 2004 became prime minister of the Congress-led UPA, again by accident.
Even as prime minister, Dr Singh was primarily focused on running the government and its policies. Managing the UPA coalition partners and other political issues within the Congress was left to Sonia Gandhi and her team. But this changed with Manmohan Singh’s initiatives to secure the Samajwadi Party’s support for the UPA government and the nuclear deal. Dr Singh even began meeting leaders of political parties that were being wooed to support the UPA government in the confidence vote. This obviously meant negotiations and assurances on the kind of relationship the Congress would like to maintain after winning the confidence vote.
This was a different Manmohan Singh, willing to make minor adjustments to ensure that the government won the trust vote and the nuclear deal was salvaged. That transition was recognised even by his own colleagues in the party. At the end of the confidence vote on July 22, a senior Congress leader described Manmohan Singh as a successful politician. Purists will argue that his image has taken a hit in the process. But most people in this country continue to see him as an honest man with impeccable integrity, even though he is now also seen as politically more pragmatic and acceptable to his own colleagues in the party. Such an image can make any political leader formidable. No one, though, knows whether this will be an advantage or disadvantage for the Congress after the elections in 2009.
