Indian Congress tricks Left parties on nuke deal

There were no heated arguments, no throwing up of papers, no walk-out. The Congress tricked the Left parties and held no final meeting of the coordination committee.

It was here that the ruling Congress was to inform the Left whether it was going ahead with the nuclear deal with the US or not. They were also to be shown the safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Instead, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made a cryptic statement about the decision on going to the IAEA from the plane in which he was flying to Tokyo to attend the G8 meeting.

The Left came to know about the decision from a news agency which rang up to seek the reaction of CPM general secretary Prakash Karat. Being a hardliner, he was furious.

The Left had not been shown the safeguards agreements which was promised. However, Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee claims that the summary was shown to them.

The anger of the Left is understandable because they were so considerate that they had announced not to withdraw support to the government till the prime minister returned from abroad.

Indeed, the 59-member Left has sustained the government in office from its inception, some four and a half years ago.

For the Left, it is a letdown because one assurance or the other came from the Congress, even from its president Sonia Gandhi, that some way would be found to allay the Left's fears.

They, on the other hand, were confident that the parting of the ways would come in a manner where the clash of ideologies was seen not as a spat between the Congress and the Left.

They had also prepared a white paper, listing the government's failures, for release at the time of their formal rejection of the nuclear deal.

In the end, it turned out to be an anti-climax. They had no opportunity of telling the Congress leaders to their face that the Left felt betrayed.

It was merely reduced to a position where it gave a letter to President Pratibha Patil, informing her that they had withdrawn the support and suggesting an early session of parliament to prove whether the Congress had the majority. However, the moment the Left had handed over the letter to the President, the government was reduced to a minority and, technically, not in a position to go ahead with the deal.

How soon the president convene the session of parliament is her decision. Both the BJP and the Left put together do not constitute a majority. Therefore, she is not constitutionally bound to summon parliament immediately. It goes without saying that her discretion is bound to be in favour of the Congress because she has come to occupy the position entirely on Sonia Gandhi's initiative.

Support

The other factor helping the Congress is the support that the Samajwadi Party (SP) of Mulayam Singh Yadav from UP has announced. The party, constituted as today, has 38 members in the Lok Sabha. This is enough to help the Congress to cross the magic figure of 272 for a simple majority.

The SP has also sent its letter of support to the president, although the letter sent by SP General Secretary Amar Singh to the Prime Minister makes little sense.

He has demanded certain steps in the fields of telecommunication and petroleum. Does it mean that the SP's support is conditional?

The Manmohan Singh government has two options: one, to have the Lok Sabha session and prove its majority or, two, to submit its resignation and hold elections.

The second option gives the Congress less time for preparations because the constitution has laid down that there should be at least one session of parliament convened within 180 days.

If there is no further session of the present Lok Sabha, elections have to take place by November to elect a new Lok Sabha, since the last session was in May.

The government has chosen the first option and wants to prove the majority on the floor of the Lok Sabha. If it succeeds, elections would be held in March-April as scheduled.

It is apparent that the government wants time for the rising prices and spiralling inflation - now hovering around 10 per cent - to come down.

The Congress has the strength of 153 and the support of SP makes the total 191. This means it will have to get another 81 to have a simple majority.

This is not difficult because the DMK has 40 and this is already in the Congress kitty because the DMK is part of the ruling coalition.

However, there are rumours that the SP is not a united house. Twelve of its members may be enticed away by Mayawati, the UP chief minister who is Mulayam Singh's rival.
If this happens, the Congress will fall short by five members. Obviously, there would be horse-trading. Many houses from the corporate sector are already in the arena. The rate quoted for a member is reportedly Rs100 million (Dh8.59 million).

In the entire process, the Left has lost the most. It has withdrawn the support when the Congress does not need it. If the Manmohan Singh government wins the vote of confidence, it would have proved that the Left's threat, repeated many a time in the last one year, did not matter even at the first instance.

If the government were to fall, the Left would be seen siding with the BJP to pull down a secular setup. It would look as if the target of the Left was not the deal but the Congress.

Kuldip Nayar is a former Indian High Commissioner to the UK and a former Rajya Sabha MP.