The government’s decision yesterday to nominate Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee as its chief negotiator to hold talks with Anna Hazare should expedite an early resolution of the stalemate over the Lok Pal Bill. However, the decision is also likely to trigger a question that would surely embarrass the top leadership of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. Why did it appear that the government dragged its feet over using the services of Pranab Mukherjee, the UPA’s most experienced politician and administrator, to defuse the crisis caused by the Hazare agitation?
Indeed, since the arrest of Mr Hazare on August 16 and the order of his release the same evening, several key ministers in the UPA government appear to have gone into hiding. Until August 16, you could watch them on television and read about their views in newspapers. No longer, after the government committed its biggest blunder in recent times — by first facilitating Mr Hazare’s arrest, then realising its mistake and ensuring the order for his release in less than 24 hours.
Even before the August 16 fiasco, the role of some UPA ministers had become intriguing. None of the ministers belonging to the non-Congress alliance partners associated themselves with the government in its bid to tackle the Hazare challenge. Trinamool Congress leaders stayed away from such consultations, barring a statement from Mamata Banerjee extending support to the prime minister. So did the Nationalist Congress Party leaders. Leaders of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam had already become quiet after the arrest of one of its ministers in the UPA government. The message that came out loud and clear from this was that the Congress alone, and none of its alliance partners, would come together to respond to the Hazare movement against corruption.
That was the first stage where the Congress became isolated within the UPA. This was ironic because Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had earlier attempted to rationalise irregularities, particularly in the 2G telecom scandal, by claiming that these arose out of the compulsions of keeping an alliance government intact. Indeed, charges of corruption were levelled primarily against ministers belonging to the non-Congress coalition parties.
Within the Congress, a few ministers experienced a different kind of isolation. Mr Mukherjee appeared to have withdrawn himself from such issues ever since he came under criticism for having gone to New Delhi airport to meet the yoga guru, Ramdev. The idea of that meeting was to persuade Ramdev against holding his agitation against a host of issues including corruption at the Ramlila grounds in New Delhi. That was a risky move. If he had succeeded, nobody in the Congress or outside would have raised an eyebrow. In politics, failure is an orphan. Thus, Mr Mukherjee had to eat humble pie.
In contrast, Home Minister P Chidambaram and Telecom and Human Resources Development Minister Kapil Sibal had emerged as the new stars of the Congress. Law enforcement agencies used force to throw out the followers of Ramdev from the Ramlila grounds at night. The police later apprehended Ramdev while he tried to run away from the venue of the agitation and packed him off to Hardwar. That was the end of Ramdev’s campaign against the government.
Mr Hazare posed a different and more formidable challenge. The Congress leadership made a big mistake by assuming that it could handle Mr Hazare the same way it took care of Ramdev. His arrest on August 16 changed the contours of the debate. The popular mood turned against the government not so much for the issues concerning the Lok Pal Bill as for the manner in which Mr Hazare was arrested for merely threatening to violate the police orders. It goes to the credit of the team behind Mr Hazare that it lost no time in exploiting that opportunity to the hilt, helped in large measure by the UPA government of Manmohan Singh which seemed to be bereft of ideas to tackle the Hazare challenge.
It was not just Pranab Mukherjee, several other senior Congress leaders may have felt the same way. What use did the government make of A K Antony, defence minister and a member of the core group of the Congress party? Neither Mr Mukherjee nor Mr Antony could be seen explaining the government’s position on the matter. The irony is that the Congress has many stalwarts who could effectively present the party’s case on the Lok Pal Bill. There is Veerappa Moily, Salman Khurshid and Jairam Ramesh, just to name a few. However, the manner in which the Manmohan Singh government functioned seemed to suggest that it had become a ruling alliance without leaders. Only from yesterday did it appear that the government indeed had these ministers at its disposal to defend and explain its position on the issue.
One explanation of such listless, and often rudderless, government functioning could be the absence of Congress President Sonia Gandhi, who is abroad recuperating from an illness. Remember that the Hazare challenge is perhaps the biggest the UPA has faced in its entire seven-year long history and Ms Gandhi is not around to advise the government. If that indeed is the case, then the Congress is in deep crisis and Sonia Gandhi must be having sleepless nights.
