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First Sikh PM's Government Is Set
For
Final Nuclear Test on July 22
Will India’s Left and Right be able to nuke the Manmohan Singh
Govt?
SachKanwal Singh
New Delhi:
India’s Left parties vowed all of past week that they will bring
down Manmohan Singh’s Congress-led government before it can finalize
the nuclear deal with the United States, the UPA said come what may,
it will survive the floor test in Lok Sabha on July 22. Much of the
debate in the media largely remained confined to reporting one
side’s claims or the other even as an ugly side show went on that
underlined the role of big business and big bucks in Indian
political system.
 The Communist
Party of India’s top leader AB Bardhan stood behind a microphone to
announce what most Indians and their uncles already have known for
decades: he said MPs were available for sale. Only novel thing he
added was to state the going rate, “currently Rs 25 crore”.
But far bigger
moneybags were also in action. July 22 loomed large on Indian
politics, and the top question remained throughout the week: “Will
the government survive?” It will remain the top query till the
afternoon of July 22 Tuesday, but what it effectively also means,
is: “Will the India-US Nuclear Deal survive?”
India’s top
wheeling-dealing politician Amar Singh, who often makes people
forget that it is Mulayam Singh and not he who is leader of the
Samajwadi Party, publicly walked into Congress fold after years of
hatred and hiatus played out on national TV, and put into words his
pound of flesh demand. A friend of top honcho Anil Ambani, he
demanded Windfall Profit Tax on Mukesh Ambani’s companies and asked
the PM to intervene to resolve the fight between the two richie-rich
brothers.
Soon, Mukesh was
meeting the PM (see separate story inside), clearly denoting the way
politics and big business go hand in hand, earlier behind the scenes
but now on national TV. If any confirmation was required, it came on
Tuesday evening as Govt of India named the new petroleum secretary
in Raghav Sharan Pandey.
Meanwhile, the
complex nuclear deal debate with all its 123, Hyde and
civil-military layers, was turned into a most simplistic debate in
Punjab
and among Sikhs: should Akali Dal MPs be voting in favor of UPA
Government because PM Dr Manmohan Singh was a Sikh? There was no
dearth of Congressmen beseeching the Akalis to do so, and appeals to
Akal Takht jathedar Joginder Singh Vedanti reached a crescendo,
asking that he issue a Hukamnama to Sikh MPs to vote for UPA
Government.
And Jathedar of
Akal Takht, Singh Sahib Joginder Singh Vedanti offered an
explanation saying the nuclear deal issue had no religious
connotation and therefore a Hukumnama on this was not possible. Many
saner elements in the Sikh community were left wondering why
Jathedar Vedanti had to offer this explanation and who but the Akal
Takht can issue a Hukumnama on any issue, religious or political?
The developments
also underlined the need for a debate about the extent to which the
Jathedar of Akal Takht should be reacting to day to day statements
and developments in politics or media, but in many ways perhaps the
debate boils down to role of the Jathedar and the many larger issues
that have been impacting the community.
As for the
Akalis, after some initial hiccups, CM Parkash Singh Badal and Akali
Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal went through the motions of a Core
Committee meeting before making it clear that the eight Akali MPs
will be voting alongwith National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by
BJP-RSS primal force. In order to deflect any criticism for trying
to vote out a Sikh PM, Badal recalled the entire “bloody history of
anti-Sikh Congress” to justify the decision.
The Left has
meanwhile announced a Bharat Bandh in August, and a nationwide
campaign against the nuclear deal and rising prices.
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Strategy, Indian style!
What
grand strategy could the Left, Ms Mayawati et al deploy to
bring down the Government? The BSP leader and UP CM has it
in her power to make some MPs from Congress and Samajwadi
Party abstain on the day of voting.
Three SP
MPs are already reportedly in her kitty. She is establishing
contact with seven other MPs from Mulayam Singh Yadav’s
Samajwadi Party. The strategy could be to make SP and
Congress MPs abstain from July 22 trust vote. Ms Mayawati
can openly offer complying MPs tickets for Lok Sabha
constituencies of their choice. |
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The Congress
spokespersons exhausted themselves trying to underline the peculiar
situation in which right wing Hindu BJP and Left parties are seen on
the same side of the fence, forgetting of course that the Congress
had itself conspired and voted with the BJP to topple the so-called
secular governments of V.P. Singh, H.D. Deve Gowda and I.K. Gujral
in the nineties.
By the way, IK
Gujral is pro-deal, his son is an Akali Dal MP in Rajya Sabha, and
also a pro-deal man who was leading the chorus from inside the party
but few took notice.
Indian media
seemed largely tilted towards the pro-deal with newspapers like the
Indian Express leading the charge against all those who opposed the
deal. So much so that the CPI (M) actually issued a press release
calling the Indian Express “a mouthpiece of American interests”.
The Left line
also was: “The popularity of President George W. Bush in US is 20-25
per cent. He is the President of a minority. We have a Prime
Minister who is heading a minority government. A minority President
and minority Prime Minister are trying to hook this country to
US
hegemony”.
Indian Lok Sabha
Speaker Somnath Chatterjee is from the CPI(M) and spent much effort
trying to fend off pressures from within his own party to quit the
post. It seemed he may actually chair the session on July 22 but if
he doesn’t, it will bring a queer situation in which Deputy Speaker
Charanjit Singh Atwal will chair it. He is from the Akali Dal and
his being in the chair will reduce one vore from the NDA kitty as
the Speaker does not vote. But in such a scenario, if the trust vote
produces a tie, then Speaker has a casting vote. Can there be a
historical situation in which Atwal will be called upon to cast his
vote? A Sikh MP deciding the fate of a Sikh PM? Wait and watch. We
will be with you on the morning of July 23. Meanwhile, keep track of
developments on www.WorldSikhNews.com.
16
July, 2008
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