Commentary/Saisuresh Sivaswamy
Pawar's timing for taking on Kesri is not right
It is not every day that one reads of a member of Parliament openly
declaring war on his or her party president, and perhaps that
is the only thing that is unusual about A R Antulay's
declaration of hostilities against his party boss, on behalf of his colleague
Sharad Pawar.
There is another thing strange about this. Which is that Antulay
has never been a Pawar supporter back home in Maharashtra, so
is he mouthing the tough statements calling for the replacement
of Sitaram Kesri as party president on cue, or is there a deeper
game behind his utterances?
The history of Congress politics, alas, is full of instances of
party leaders saying one thing and meaning another. In fact, the
person in whose name unswerving loyalty is being promised would
do well to take it as a signal to be on guard.
Remember, till the last minute, V P Singh, then virtually Rajiv
Gandhi's number two in the Cabinet, was swearing by his leader,
even as he was plotting ways and means to overthrow him. Or, for
that matter, how Arjun Singh refused to be drawn into an open
confrontation with his party president and prime minister P V
Narasimha Rao and chose to couch the hostilities in euphemisms.
The last should give one an indication of the way how battles
are fought in the Congress party. So it is doubly interesting
that Antulay has chosen to speak out against the party high command,
that too in the name of another leader.
Even assuming that Antulay is Pawar's cat's paw for the moment
-- which really stretches one's credulity, given the nature of
the equations hitherto between them -- the Maratha chieftain,
known for his sense of realpolitik, seems to have chosen the wrong
moment to strike at Kesri. For it is evident that
the wily Bihar politician has demonstrated that he has got the
United Front leadership exactly where he wanted, over a barrel.
In fact, there were enough Cassandras, both within his outfit and
outside, who decried his sense of timing and the wisdom behind
withdrawing support to the United Front government, but in the
end Kesri has been proved right.
Yes, your average Congressman may not be entirely enthused by
the idea of another general election, but on this question
Kesri has shown that the UF leadership is no different. And
Kesri, who has managed the finances of the country's largest and
most significant political party for decades, should know how
difficult it would be to raise finances to fight another election.
In fact, he gambled on this point and won.
Today, it is the UF that is going through contortions to avoid
another election, it is the UF that is going through
the motions of finding another leader to replace H D Deve Gowda,
it is the UF that is determined to put the Left Front -- which
has come out strongly against the idea of replacing Deve Gowda -- in
its place -- and it is Kesri who is laughing behind the scenes at
the successful culmination of Act I of the political drama scripted
by him.
True, sentiments were running strong against Kesri's decision
to pull the rug from under the UF government on Friday, the day
of the crucial trust motion. And it is
evident that instead of issuing a whip to his party MPs to vote
against the motion, had the Congress party's floor managers agreed
to a conscience vote, the Deve Gowda government would still be
in office today.
However, having said that, it is the leader's prerogative that
unpleasant, and often unpopular, decisions are taken. The decision
to dump the UF government was one such, but in retrospect it is
the average Congressman who has been proved wrong. Contrary to
expectations, the UF government has not recommended the dissolution
of the 11th Lok Sabha; and the bets are that it will not either.
Credit it to a sense of glorified importance that tells them that
national interest do not dictate another election,
or to a sense of pragmatism that tells them that their good fortune
may not be repeated in another round of polling, the electorate
plumbing for stability than another hotch-potch alliance.
Whatever it was, it is Kesri who has come right on top, at least
as of this moment. He called for a change in the UF leadership, and
when push came to shove he
has hung on right there. One can call his action undemocratic,
but not apolitical. He has demonstrated a far shrewder approach to
the dilemma faced by his party than most people are willing to
credit him with.
And by the time the three-day Parliament session convened by the
Speaker to dispose of urgent fiscal matters comes around, it is
anyone's bet that the UF will have settled on a new prime minister,
after fulminating against Kesri's decision to gun for Deve Gowda.
Can such a man, who has demonstrated that he has the necessary
willpower to force the government into submission, be taken on
at such a juncture? Anyone who has been following Sharad
Pawar's political career knows that the Maratha does not get into
any battle that he has no chances of winning. If he has indeed
flung down the gauntlet, one wonders what it was that gave
him the confidence to take on his party president when the latter's
political moves have all proved right!
Or, is it possible that Antulay is playing another game altogether?
By his utterances favouring Pawar against Kesri's leadership
is he queering the pitch for the Maratha strongman? After all,
Pawar did demonstrate on the Saturday following the trust vote
that a large number of MPs congregated at his home and
that they did use the occasion to let off steam against Kesri.
So, is this Kesri's way of putting Pawar on the mat, by letting
Antulay do the talking? If one realises that at no time in the
past has Antulay been Pawar's acolyte, the gameplan becomes obvious.
After all, Congress politics,
like still waters, run very deep.
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