Columns: Race Course Road

Columns

India Today, February 15, 1999
Feb 15, 1999

RACE COURSE ROAD
Critical Flaw

Unlike Rao's PMO, Vajpayee's set up is inefficient.

By Prabhu Chawla

Will he survive or won't he? This question has been haunting Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee from the moment he took over as leader of the 18-party coalition at the Centre on March 19, 1998. Since then not a single month has passed without his adversaries predicting his imminent fall. But by surviving as prime minister for 11 months, Vajpayee has proved the Cassandras wrong, at least for the time being.

The prophets of doom, however, refuse to go away. Last week, they surfaced when Vajpayee chose to attack the ever-bloating subsidy regime. Any other government choosing this sensible approach would have been lauded by the chatterati. Instead, the social elite with its insatiable appetite for gossip indulged in speculative politics. The fall is impending, they said, foretelling once again that the Government would not survive.

In a way, Vajpayee's plight is no different from that of his predecessors like V.P. Singh, P.V. Narasimha Rao, H.D. Deve Gowda and I.K. Gujral. All of them led minority governments. Except for Rao, none completed a year in office. Barring last-minute desertions by major allies, Vajpayee will set a record of sorts next month by becoming the first ever genuine non-Congress prime minister to complete a full year in office.

The question being asked now is: if he manages the first year, will he see out his term like Rao did? When Rao first set out, he lived from day to day. Vajpayee gets a monthly reprieve from his opponents. Yet, he has adopted the working ways of Rao, whom he considers his guru in politics. For the past 11 months, Vajpayee has been trying to emulate Rao's style of governance.

Is the shishya thus following in the foot steps of his guru? The prime minister's backers firmly believe so. During his first year, Rao allowed his ministers to take their own decisions. At the same time he allowed parallel centres of power to operate in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and in the AICC. Vajpayee too has adopted this model with minor modifications. In much the same way that Rao allowed Arjun Singh to emerge as a challenger, Vajpayee has deliberately tolerated his home minister, even permitting him to emerge as an alternative in the party. Like Rao, during times of crises, Vajpayee has chosen to maintain a low profile and confine himself to Race Course Road. Like Rao again, Vajpayee has been concentrating on the economic agenda. It is to the credit of the BJP-led Government that many issues like the Urban Land Ceiling (Regulations ) Act, privatisation of the insurance sector and disinvestment of PSU equity have been taken to their logical end. But while the economy responded to Rao's reforms drive, it still refuses to smile at Vajpayee's magnanimities.

For much of its tenure, the Rao government was dogged by scams and scandals but the success on the economic sphere gave it the much-needed stability. For Vajpayee, the lack of such success is adding to his unending miseries. The difference lies in the fact that while Rao could thwart every coup thanks to a vigilant and efficient PMO which under principal secretary A.N.Verma knew how to rein in the bureaucracy, Vajpayee's PMO could not even get rid of a defiant public sector managing director who was responsible for the onion crisis in the country. Ultimately, it is not the needling allies but the lacklustre and unimaginative PMO which could prove to be Vajpayee's nemesis.

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