A sordid game of bluff and brinkmanship leads to the collapse of the UF government. Despite the Congress staking claim, a mid-term election seems imminent.

By Swapan Dasgupta and Javed M. Ansari with Harinder Baweja and Saba Naqvi Bhaumik

In the seven days that preceded the Congress party's withdrawing support to the I.K. Gujral Government, All India Congress Committee (AICC) President Sitaram Kesri issued a simple instruction to his chauffeur: "India Gate ka ek aur chakkar lagao (take an extra round of India Gate)." The charitable explanation was Kesri was anxious to dodge the inquisitive pack of TV journalists who have tailed him with fanatical dedication. The less innocent, however, said that he was anxious to keep alive the speculation that he would abruptly turn into Rajpath and head straight for Rashtrapati Bhavan, as he had done one Sunday morning in March.

Ultimately, Kesri's white Ambassador car did take the appropriate left turn on Friday evening to inform President K.R. Narayanan that the Congress was withdrawing its support to the United Front (UF) Government. But it was a journey he took his time making -- after four excruciatingly long Congress Working Committee (CWC) sessions, two "informal" CWC meets, two meetings of the Congress Parliamentary Party and an exchange of four letters between him and Prime Minister Gujral. The Jain Commission controversy began making waves from the evening of November 8. It took the CWC 12 days to send its ultimatum to Gujral to drop the DMK ministers from his Government or face withdrawal of Congress support. It took the prime minister another four days to say no and a further four days and two more letters (not counting Kesri's letter to the President and Gujral's resignation letter) for the second UF Government of the 11th Lok Sabha to pass into history.

By common acclaim, the fall of the Gujral Government at this juncture was an accident of history. Gujral may not have provided the country its most purposeful government, but at least there was a government of sorts at a time when the political class was clearly unprepared for another election. Of course, there was the usual sniping both from within the UF constituents and the 140-member Congress party that provided the regime its parliamentary majority. But the prime minister and the AICC president were on the best of terms, and there was even talk of the Congress joining the Government at a future date. So, how did the relationship break down so abruptly? Why is the country headed for a snap general election that the majority of the Lok Sabha does not want?

To name Justice M.C. Jain as the sole villain of the piece would be a gross oversimplification. The findings of the interim report did not come as any real surprise to those who had been following its interminable proceedings. Jain's indictment of the DMK and former prime ministers V.P. Singh and Chandra Shekhar were entirely anticipated and not seriously believed by even their worst detractors. Yet, in the end, Jain's indictment of the Karunanidhi government of 1989-91 was taken to its logical political conclusion by a Congress party that is not even convinced it is doing the right thing.

The Jain report, in a sense, was merely a convenient pretext for unsettling an inherently fragile arrangement that was thrown up by the fractured mandate of the 1996 general election. Even after suffering its worst electoral debacle in recent memory -- it was overtaken by the BJP as the single largest party -- the Congress has not entirely reconciled itself to its fall from grace. It continues to hanker for power and the trappings of office, but without going through the arduous rigours of a political comeback. At the Calcutta AICC plenary in August, Kesri railed against the culture of coalitions and promised the party another shy at power in Delhi. Three months later, he hadn't even taken a first step in mobilising the party for the fightback. He was too busy enjoying the fruits of his exceptional relationship with Gujral, so much so that he didn't even bother to institute the Congress-UF coordination committee that he promised to former President S.D. Sharma last April. He too was in search of political shortcuts.

Unfortunately for him, so were his factional adversaries. Resentful of the AICC president's cosy relationship with Gujral that didn't even lead to more Congress supporters getting government meal tickets, CWC members like Arjun Singh, Jitendra Prasada and K. Vijayabhaskara Reddy used the Jain report to hit Kesri where it hurt the most. They essentially manufactured a situation whereby the CWC began its negotiations with the UF on the Jain report with all exit routes firmly shut. Once the UF rejected the demands of the November 20 CWC resolution calling for the ouster of the DMK ministers, the Congress was left with two options: go the whole hog or lose face altogether. In overthrowing the Gujral Government, the Congress followed a reverse logic. The withdrawal of support was not the climax of a slow build-up, it was the lowest point. By making his optimum demand non-negotiable from day one, Kesri proved himself an inept political manager. He will have to suffer its consequences in a party that values manoeuvring skills more than mobilising abilities. Already his detractors are referring to a deal whereby the Government has sought to exonerate Kesri in two pending criminal cases involving financial improprieties.

Kesri was the victim of a classic pincer movement. First, he tried to underplay the significance of the Jain report. When that did not succeed and he was forced into an extremist stance, he tried to gloss over the contents of the report, thereby losing out on the opportunity to mobilise ordinary Congress workers on an emotional theme. When the UF leadership, particularly the DMK, mounted a savage counter-offensive aimed at highlighting the untenability of Jain's conclusions, the Congress was silent. Apart from a feeble bid by former MP Mani Shankar Aiyar to turn Jain to political advantage, the Congress abandoned the propaganda war. There was not even a whimper when UF stalwarts like Karnataka Chief Minister J.H. Patel threatened to resurrect the Bofors controversy and the Thakkar Commission report on Indira Gandhi's assassination in 1984.

After the Congress proclaimed its disinclination to face a debate on the Jain report, the UF grew convinced that Kesri could not extract any political mileage from Rajiv Gandhi's murder. This in turn encouraged the UF to persist with its intransigence and even successfully project the issue as a north-south conflict.

Paradoxically, Kesri's squeamishness over the Jain report came as a godsend to the regional parties to try and re-negotiate the terms of the Congress-UF partnership. With 10 states under its control, the UF was keen to turn the Congress' steady decline to its advantage. By refusing to budge on the DMK issue -- despite attempts made by Gujral, Defence Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav and Tamil Maanila Congress chief G.K. Moopanar to soften the resistance -- leaders like Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda and West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu were making it clear that any future "secular" coalition would be on terms dictated by them. In such a tie-up, the Congress could be a partner, but it could not presume to call the shots. The UF has not deemed the Congress its enemy number one -- a reason why it preferred an outright dissolution of the Lok Sabha without a vicious debate; it merely wants to show the latter its subordinate status in a future arrangement. The UF believes it will win more seats in a snap election than the Congress.

That the UF could, for a change, look to the long-term owes a great deal to a belief that the BJP and its allies have peaked electorally. This is, of course, an untested assumption. But it is sufficiently clear that Atal Bihari Vajpayee has very little chance of making a success of his 13-day botched experiment with defectors from the UF parties. For 18 months, despite all predictions to the contrary, the UF has not only survived as an entity, but it has also institutionalised its existence. Today, the UF is capable of acting as a cohesive entity. The predatory manoeuvres of the BJP, whether in Uttar Pradesh or among first-term MPs in the Lok Sabha, are directed at the Congress. Even here, the proclaimed success of the BJP's propaganda has been higher than the actual success in enticing defectors. The UF Core Committee could afford to cock a snook at Kesri because it knows that Vajpayee will not be able to muster the support of the 70-odd MPs necessary to form a government in this Parliament. Moreover, even within the BJP, there is a sharp divergence of views between those who prefer another election and those who want to adopt the Kalyan Singh approach.

Not that there is any real hope of Lucknow being repeated at the Centre. Any recognised split in the Congress requires at least 48 MPs, and this is a figure that neither the UF nor the BJP can hope to realise. There is a definite likelihood of individual Congress MPs seeking BJP or even UF nomination after the dissolution of Parliament -- for the moment they have no choice but to follow Kesri into an uncertain future. And, if Sonia Gandhi makes it clear she is not interested in jeopardising her lofty extra-constitutional status by entering politics, the real fight in the next election could be between the UF and the BJP. Last week, the Congress bluff was called. It has to now pay for this miscalculation. Unless, of course, Kesri re-enacts the Great Indian Rope Trick and enters South Block.

Caretaker Governance

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