A K Bhattacharya : Turbulence after take-off

RAISINA HILL

The Manmohan Singh government is less than 10 weeks old. It is perhaps too early to pass judgement on its style of governance. But four developments, taking place in quick succession, reveal a lot about the problems the government may face in settling down.

To use a civil aviation terminology, Manmohan Singh's plane seems to have got caught in turbulent weather immediately after take-off.

First, the big surprise Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh sprang on the nation. Obtaining support of all the political parties in the state, the chief minister got the legislative assembly to annul the agreement with the neighbouring states of Haryana and Rajasthan to share with them its water from Ravi-Beas.

He got it endorsed by the Governor, too, in quick time. And this happened just two days before the apex court of the land was due to pass its verdict on transferring the responsibility of constructing the much-delayed Sutlej-Yamuna canal to the Centre.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was upset at the manner in which a Congress chief minister had placed his government in such an embarrassing situation.

Apparently, no one in the government had any inkling of the Punjab chief minister's plans. But that says a lot about the alertness and the state of preparedness of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Centre.

What was the home ministry doing? Didn't it have adequate intelligence on the various strategies the state government had been formulating? If the Punjab newspapers could carry details of these strategies, surely the home ministry had an idea of them? And whose responsibility was it to keep the prime minister informed of such developments and suggest alternative strategies?

Today, Amarinder Singh is a hero in Punjab. He has secured his political future in the state. But the country has been driven to a crisis on the question of sharing water among states and the legitimacy of multilateral agreements. The tasks ahead of the Manmohan Singh government have only become more difficult.

The second development was a tragedy. More than 100 children died in a fire in a school in Kumbakonam in Tamil Nadu. The prime minister was advised to nominate Communications Minister Dayanidhi Maran to head for Kumbakonam and oversee the rescue operations.

The Congress member of Parliament from that area, Mani Shankar Aiyyar, was not sent and must have felt ignored. It was a mistake for which Aiyyar may not forgive the PMO officials for quite some time.

The Congress President Sonia Gandhi found time to visit the accident site immediately on her return from Bangkok, where she had gone to attend an international conference. The prime minister could not free himself from his busy schedule to be with the bereaved families.

That may be understandable. But Sonia Gandhi's apparent attempt to make amends could not have cut much ice. She told the people there that she had been advised by the prime minister to announce a grant of Rs 1 crore for the victims of the accident.

The third development was the controversy over the inclusion of tainted ministers in the Union council of ministers. Right through the Budget session of Parliament till it went into recess last week, the government refused to concede the demand from the opposition parties to drop the tainted ministers. The government stuck to its stand even when a Jharkhand court issued a warrant against coal minister Shibu Soren.

But something happened after the Budget session of Parliament went into recess. Setting a new precedent of sorts, the prime minister issued on Friday evening a directive that Shibu Soren should resign.

True, Soren resigned on Saturday afternoon. But why did the prime minister have to issue a public statement calling for the resignation of Soren? Prime ministers have the powers to call a minister, obtain his resignation and hand that over to the President. It is only after the resignation letter is forwarded to the President, that adequate publicity of the resignation is given. But Manmohan Singh's was a new style and raised many questions.

Fourth, the manner in which the Centre declared a moratorium on the Global Trust Bank on Saturday and followed it up on Monday with a proposal to merge the troubled private sector bank with the profit-making Oriental Bank of Commerce showed that the UPA government's crisis management skills were poor.

If a merger was on the cards, was there any need to inconvenience eight lakh depositors of GTB over the weekend and create a big uncertainty ? A delay of two to three days to announce a complete package of merging GTB with Oriental Bank of Commerce would not have made any difference.

The four developments are not related. But there is one common thread running across all of them. When there is a crisis, the UPA government does not seem to be in command.