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Another major result of the latest poll has been the shattering defeat of the Left Front, led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), in both its bastions, West Bengal and Kerala. The Front's tally has plummeted from 62 in 2004, the highest ever, to 24, the lowest ever. In West Bengal where the Marxist-led Left has ruled for the last 32 years, the Left Front has been virtually routed. This is the consequence of an alliance between the Congress and the feisty woman, Mamata Banerjee, who leads the Trinamool (Grassroots) Congress. Of the two in West Bengal, Mamata is the senior partner. In New Delhi she has joined the new cabinet of Dr Manmohan Singh as Minister for Railways, a post on which she had set her heart.
Altogether, the main feature of the post-poll scene is that the ruling United Progressive Alliance is stronger than before, within it the Congress is more dominant than it was, and within both the position of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has become much stronger than it was even on the polling day. Moreover, only after the polls has the Congress realised that the good doctor's positive image as a man of 'decency, exceptional integrity and manifest competence' has contributed to its victory. However, this does not detract one bit from the fundamental fact that the primary credit for the electoral victory goes to Congress president Sonia Gandhi who remains in control of both the Congress party and the UPA.
There has also been conspicuous surge in the standing and stature of her son, Rahul Gandhi — the fourth-generation scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family — who clearly mobilised the vote of the youth for his party. His impeccable manners and energetic campaigning also helped. His idea that in the key state of Uttar Pradesh that sends 80 of the 543 members to parliament the Congress should 'go alone' has paid rich dividends. The party's seats in U.P. are more than doubled. If not restrained by Sonia, the sycophancy-driven Congress party would have insisted on Rahul becoming a senior cabinet minister, if not being elevated to the post of prime minister right away. But the sensible young man has flatly refused to join the government and plans to concentrate on rebuilding the party organisation instead.
Under these circumstances, the country was confident that while constituting the new cabinet the prime minister and the Congress president would refuse to be blackmailed by the reduced number of their allies. (Some former allies like Lalu Prasad Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan in Bihar and Mulayam Singh Yadav in U.P. had ditched the Congress during the polls.) Sadly, this expectation has not been fulfilled entirely. During the last few days there has been squalid bargaining between the Congress and the Dravid Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) of Tamil Nadu, which is a pre-poll ally.
Not only did the DMK patriarch and state Chief Minister, M Karunanidhi, demand more cabinet berths than his strength warranted but he also demanded portfolios that are 'lucrative' and are known as 'ATM ministries'. Two of the DMK ministers who had held some of these ministries in the previous UPA government are alleged to have set a record in loot. Everyone knew what was going on but in view of the government's precarious majority, no one could even say boo to the duo. Under a compromise with the DMK, one of these two ex- ministers is in the cabinet. The other is kept out but he is likely to be elected deputy speaker of the Lok Sabha (lower house of parliament).
This has clearly made a dent in the glad, confident image the Congress exuded after the declaration of the election results. People who expected the new government to be clean are now apprehensive. And if indeed the UPA-2 turns out to be as compromising — and consequently as ineffectual — as the UPA-1, God help India.
One other feature of the Congress-DMK deal merits attention. In keeping with the dynastic pattern of Indian politics, Karunanidhi's nominees in the Manmohan government include his son, daughter and grandnephew. The DMK ministers, together with younger Congress ministers, took the oath of office and secrecy of late. But those in charge of the core ministries — finance, home, defence and external affairs — are already in the saddle. They are all veteran Congressmen, and the only new face among them is S. M. Krishna who is the new foreign minister. The previous foreign minister, Pranab Mukherjee, the government's main troubleshooter, preferred to be Finance Minister. P. Chidambaram, shifted from finance to home affairs after the Bombay terrorist outrage, retains his old post, as does A. K. Antony in the ministry of defence.
Krishna is a former chief minister of the southern state of Karnataka and a former governor of Maharashtra. But he has yet to show his mettle in handling external affairs though it goes without saying that the prime minister and the prime minister's office would be taking an active part in formulating foreign policy. Both the prime minister and the foreign minister have their task cut out for them. During the prolonged election when the government was practically dysfunctional, the entire neighbourhood of India went up in flames. The Maoists of Nepal treated Indian advice not to sack the country's army chief with disdain and preferred to resign. A new non-Maoist prime minister has been elected but the Maoists could create a crisis that could have a very adverse impact on its relations with India.
Luckily, the ethnic war in Sri Lanka has ended in the complete defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). But massive problems of relief and rehabilitation of the beleaguered Tamil civilians and, even more, the final solution of the basic problem of giving the Tamil minority of the island republic adequate autonomy within the framework of a united Sri Lanka remain. If not satisfactorily resolved, these could lead to grim consequences in both Sri Lanka and the Tamil Nadu state of India. Of the nightmare in 'Af-Pak' and its impact on the Obama policy towards India the less said the better. On top of it all, China is becoming more and more assertive and aggressive in relation to India.
Yet, despite the grave urgency of the foreign policy challenges, the government's top priority is, as it should be, the salvaging of the economy from the blows delivered by the global meltdown. The prime minister has let it be known that food security is on the top of his agenda for the first 100 days. This is welcome because over the last four months food prices have risen by a whopping 40 per cent. More details of the government's plans and programmes would be given in the president's address to parliament and later in the budget to be passed before July 31.
It is necessary to revert to election results to make a critically important point. Too many people are jumping with joy over the 'imminent demise' of the BJP, the Communists and the regional parties. They are being not only naïve and overoptimistic but also downright wrong. The Congress vote has surely gone up by two per cent since 2004 while the BJP's share had gone down by 3 per cent. Moreover, though the Communists have suffered a shattering loss of seats, their share of votes is intact. Most importantly, the combined vote of the Congress and the BJP at 48.7 per cent is only marginally more than it was five years ago. This clearly means that more than 51 per cent Indians are still voting for outfits other than the two mainstream parties. In short, neither the Saffron (BJP), nor the Reds nor regional parties are likely to disappear from the Indian political landscape. Whether they would regain the lost space would depend on how far and how fast they reinvent themselves.
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