The final countdown for India
By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - India's ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) will face a
crucial confidence vote early next week that will decide the fate not only of
the government but also the India-United States civilian nuclear deal. If the
government loses the vote, the country faces early elections and the nuclear
deal will probably be scuttled.
The Congress-led UPA government was reduced to a minority on July 8 when the
four-party left front withdrew its support to the ruling coalition. While the
government's circulation of the draft safeguards agreement among the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)board members was the immediate
provocation for the left's decision to pull the plug, the larger reason is its
opposition to the nuclear deal itself and the undue US influence
on Indian foreign policy that it allegedly engenders.
The UPA coalition came to power in May 2004 with the outside support of the
left. Over the past four years, the UPA-left relationship has been strained,
with the latter often threatening to walk out. The threatened divorce has
finally happened over the nuclear deal.
Proponents of the nuclear deal argue that it will end three decades of India's
nuclear isolation and will provide India with much-needed access to nuclear
fuel and technology. It will enable India to engage in nuclear trade.
It has been a long, arduous journey since the agreement was signed in 2005, and
several more tortuous steps remain before the agreement can be operationalized.
The IAEA board has to clear the India-specific safeguards agreement. The board
is scheduled to take up the issue for discussion on August 1. Then the Nuclear
Suppliers Group (NSG) has to agree to make an exception in its rules that would
permit its 45 members to engage in civilian nuclear trade with India - which
has a nuclear weapon - even though it is not a signatory to the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty. After that, the US president will have to determine
that India has fulfilled its part of the deal and send it to the US Congress
for its assent.
But these steps lie ahead. The immediate hurdle the UPA government faces is a
trust vote in parliament on July 21-22.
The UPA government has only 226 members in the 543-seat Lok Sabha, the Lower
House of parliament. After the 59-member left front pulled out support, the
government is 46 seats short of a simple majority. Support from the Samajwadi
Party (SP), which has 39 seats, had emboldened the Congress to defy the left.
With full SP support it was still seven short, but that was a number it could
woo, the UPA thought.
Things have not turned out quite that easy. Now the UPA has found that the SP
is not in a position to deliver all 39 votes. Two SP members parliament (MPs)
have said they will vote against the UPA and another is cooling his heels in
jail.
What is more, the support of even UPA constituents is in doubt. The five-MP
Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) is demanding plum posts in the cabinet in return
for its support.
The larger parties have shown their hand. The charge against the UPA will be
led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA),
the left and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). As of now, the NDA appears to be
holding together. One of its main constituents, the right-wing Shiv Sena, had
at one point said it supported the nuclear deal, raising hopes in the UPA. But
such hopes were dashed when the Shiv Sena clarified that it intended voting
against the government.
The UPA also hoped to win the support of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) with the
emotional appeal that as a Sikh party it should not bring down a government led
by a Sikh, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. After some dillydallying, the SAD has
said it too will vote against the government.
The UPA is now scouting around for support from smaller parties. In what is
likely to be a close contest, every single vote will count. It is reaching out
to independents representing constituencies in India's geographic extremities
and engaging in hectic bargaining with smaller parties. Their support will not
come easy as they are demanding much in return for their valuable votes.
The two-MP Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), a former UPA constituent, wants a
separate Telangana state to be carved out of Andhra Pradesh, the two-MP
Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) wants cabinet berths and a seat-sharing arrangement in
general elections and the two-MP Janata Dal (Secular) is still bargaining hard.
Small parties these might be, but their demands are large.
Senior Congress sources told Asia Times Online on Wednesday that the party is
"100% confident at this juncture of 260 votes". It is having to crawl for the
remaining 12 votes.
To save one deal - the nuclear deal - the UPA is having to make several other
deals. "It should not be seen as deal-making," said Congress spokesperson
Manish Tiwari in justifying the bargaining. "It's give and take."
Hectic efforts are on at poaching support by dangling ministerships and large
sums of money. Parties like the SP are expected to keep their flock physically
together to ensure that the opposition isn't able to reach them and rival BSP
has promised its sitting MPs that they will be renominated for the next
election.
With every vote mattering, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), a constituent of the
UPA, is working hard to get its jailbird MPs over to parliament on Tuesday. Two
RJD MPs are serving time for very serious crimes. Not to be left behind, a BSP
leader dashed to Farukhabad jail to sound out the party's incarcerated MP about
the upcoming vote.
The trust vote has triggered a dramatic re-alignment in Indian politics. For
the first time ever, the left, practitioners of class politics, will join
forces with Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which believes in caste-based
mobilization. More ironic, is that the left is joining hands with the
right-wing BJP to bring down the government. As for the new camaraderie between
the Congress and the SP, this is clearly a marriage of convenience. Neither is
in a position to face the electorate, hence their newfound togetherness.
No party has behaved in a principled manner in the current crisis and no party
is likely to come out of this confidence vote clean. If the Congress'
deal-making to survive the vote is disgusting, the BJP's decision to oppose the
nuclear deal is unprincipled.
It was under a BJP-led government that India tested nuclear weapons in 1998 and
it was the BJP that subsequently initiated the process that has now culminated
in the nuclear deal. Had this deal been offered while the BJP was in power, it
would have surely accepted it. What is more, the BJP is not opposed to India's
warming relations with the US either. In fact, BJP foreign minister Jaswant
Singh spent months pursuing a "special relationship" with Washington. Still,
the party will vote against the government on Tuesday.
As for the left, its MPs will thunder in parliament on Monday about the UPA's
anti-poor policies and its romancing of the "forces of imperialism". Its claim
to speak on behalf of the poor would have had some credibility had it pulled
out support from the government on issues like farmers' suicides or spiraling
prices.
Several left MPs are unhappy with the decision to vote with the BJP to bring
down the government. Prominent among them is veteran communist leader Somnath
Chatterjee, speaker of the House.
The UPA will be hoping that supporters of the nuclear deal in the NDA, and
those in the left that are uneasy with voting with the BJP, will come to its
aid on Tuesday by voting with the UPA or at least abstaining.
Trust votes in India's parliament are known for their drama. They are preceded
by horse-trading, wheeling and dealing and no one is quite sure about the
loyalty of their flock. Trust votes have often been nail-biting affairs. The
vote on Tuesday will be no different. Political parties have brought out the
whips to keep their flocks together. Yet they will nervously be watching for
rebels among their ranks.
In 1999, the BJP government was up against a no-confidence vote. It lost by a
whisker - one vote. And the government fell.
On Tuesday, it could be a couple of jailbirds that rescue the UPA government
and the nuclear deal.
Sudha Ramachandran is an independent journalist/researcher based in
Bangalore.
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