Parliament session will leave many red faces

The working week that begins on Monday is likely to be the stormiest the Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, has faced since the United Progressive Alliance took office.

Fate has conspired to place a clutch of issues in the spotlight just as parliament begins its winter session. Bihar, I suspect, shall dominate proceedings, but India's foreign policy vis-a-vis Iran, Iraq and the United States shall gather its fair share of thunder.

Let us begin with Bihar. Two judgments are expected next week, from the people of Bihar in the Vidhan Sabha elections, and from the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of those polls.

Nobody shall blame Singh should the United Progressive Alliance perform poorly. The Congress has all but washed its hands of the state, putting up just 51 candidates for a 243-strong assembly.

A party that held an overwhelming majority in the Bihar Vidhan Sabha (lower house of representatives) as late as January 1990 now plays the part of Lalu Prasad Yadav's poodle. (Win or lose, the Rashtriya Janata Dal boss will try to further undermine the Congress.)

However, these political issues lie in Sonia Gandhi's domain, not that of Singh. He will find it harder to evade a punch from the supreme court.

Their lordships have already declared that the decision to dissolve the Bihar assembly earlier this year was "unconstitutional". They had not, however, delivered the full judgment. (Nor overturned the act of dissolution as they might have done.)

What happens if the supreme court chooses to spell out just who was responsible for the "unconstitutional" shenanigans in Patna and New Delhi?

Nothing in the constitution says the union cabinet must accept a recommendation from a governor.

The prime minister and his colleagues were expected to use their own best judgment before taking so grave and so undemocratic a decision as dissolving an assembly before it met even once.

Buta Singh's enlightenment about horse-trading, the midnight summons to the cabinet over a weekend, that hasty fax to the president in distant Moscow this is an affair that reeks of rotting fish. Some have sought to deflect the blame, to Rashtrapati Bhavan.

This is unjust. At best, the president can ask the cabinet to reconsider. But this is where Singh and Shivraj Patil come squarely into the picture.

Both have earned a reputation as honest men, people whose word you can take without fear.

Where a president might have hesitated with other ministers, he would have believed that these two intelligent and trustworthy men would never do anything shabby.

The prime minister and the home minister haven't just let the president down, they took a hammer to their own reputation when they signed that fax to Moscow.

Will their word carry the same moral authority now that you know how they bent to blackmail from their allies?

They cannot even claim the fig leaf of giving Bihar a decent administration. Constitutionally, the union government assumes all responsibility for a state after imposing president's rule.

This puts the burden of explaining the Naxalites' audacious "Operation Jailbreak" on the union home minister.

How on earth did they stage a raid on Jehanabad's jail when the whole state was reportedly flooded with security personnel?

The embarrassment caused by the Maoists in Bihar goes hand in hand with the disruption planned by Marxists elsewhere.

The Left Front and the Samajwadi Party have joined hands to turn Indian diplomacy on its head.

Speaking at a conclave in Lucknow, they demanded that the Singh government tilt towards Iran should it be censured for nuclear proliferation.

"Together, we have over 110 MPs in the Lok Sabha," was the message of the day. The words, "change your vote, or face the consequences", may not have been spoken, but they were heard loud and clear.

This is gamesmanship taken to new depths. It ignored the fact that Iran has been condemned by the United Nations agencies (something that was absent in the case of Iraq), and that India's security environment would be notably degraded in the event of Iran manufacturing nuclear weapons.

It is a clear ploy for Muslim votes, given that the threat was made in front of the assembled Islamic clergy.

(The Khilafat agitation was the last attempt to make domestic politics hostage to events in a foreign country; it led to a heightened sense of Muslim separatism.) And, of course, it tears the prime minister's authority to shreds.

Singh was fighting an uphill battle in trying to improve relations with the United States.

His former external affairs minister stands exposed as an unreconstructed cold warrior.

But staying true to India's interests means the prime minister faces his first head-on clash with the Left Front.

After that open threat in Lucknow it is impossible for either side to withdraw without loss of face.

All this and the Volcker Committee Report too! November 13 was the 125th birth anniversary of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the last great Sikh ruler in India.

"One day, everything will be red!" he predicted on seeing the tide of British acquisitions creeping towards Punjab.

Watching events unfold, I believe next week shall leave several Congressmen, if not "Red", then red-faced!