The bold decisions on economic policy reflect the growing clout of the Congress Core Committee, reports Pramod Kumar

The Congress, on the defensive over a spate of scandals, has suddenly got second wind. Ostensibly to boost the economy, the UPA is in the process of initiating a series of radical measures: the prime minister does not want to go down in history as a weak leader and what better way to demonstrate his strength than preside over the execution of economic reforms Part 2?

That Singh continues in office for a second term is a demonstration that the party is comfortable with him and his government's policies. The government is also persuading ministries that deal with social welfare issues tobegin programmes that benefit the 'last man standing' – at least in the run up to General Elections 2014.

The party's good news comes from president Sonia Gandhi's health bulletin.After being cleared by doctors, she is now fully in command and according to party sources, raring to go. Sources say indication of it has come in the growing clout of the party's Core Committee and the declining importance of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), when it comes to taking important policy decisions.

The power of the Core Committee flows from its attendees: Manmohan Singh, Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Defence Minister AK Anthony, Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, Ahmed Patel, political aide to the Congress president and special invitees Rahul Gandhi and Ghulam Nabi Azad. It cannot get higher in the party and with an economist Prime Minister at the helm, the mood is to initiate reforms at a breakneck pace –as if to catch up on all that was left undone in the last three years or so.

Party leaders say that in recent months the prime minister has not been in the best of spirits. The constant opposition attacks on him personally and the government have left him exhausted. The current Core Committee of the Congress, despite its heavyweight attendance, misses the presence of its heaviest member, Pranab Mukerjee, the party's most important trouble shooter.

The prime minister, along with others, miss his experience and sage advice, mostly on how best to deal with a noisy opposition. Pranab, as the man who presided over most high-level committees of the government, was eminently suited to tackle thorny issues. "His advice (when he was here) to the prime minister was to ignore the opposition and continue to do good work," says a Core Committee member.

In his absence, the Committee which meets every Thursday, now has a carefully calibrated agenda in which agenda papers, in the manner of a Union Cabinet meeting, are circulated before the meeting begins.

Sonia's instructions are categorical: all those who attend should be well briefed on the agenda. Hence, say observers, the last four Core Committee meetings have seen key decisions: FDI in retail, discussions on Coalgate and hikes in petroleum and railway prices.

According to a member who attended, the discussions have been quite detailed. For instance, in the case of FDI in Retail, the political fallout of introducing it was discussed threadbare before the actual announcement. The committee mulled over all aspects, from the reaction of opposition parties to what its allies may do. In the end, they decided to take a calculated risk and it appears to have worked.

The party's calculation is indeed the right mix of pragmatism and opportunism. The way Congress sees it, in a bad scenario, the FDI bills would be defeated in the Rajya Sabha in the winter session of the Parliament. Worse, if the bills are defeated in the Lok Sabha and the government falls, it would continue to remain a care taker government, which would then seek to introduce provisions with the help of special ordnances.

Both Singh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram believe that the rupee has to be strengthened and if that means taking harsh decisions, then so be it. Party general secretary Digvijay Singh, told TSI, "The government is only interested in pushing through economic reforms so that the common man gets succour.''

Interestingly, after the Core Committee meetings were more or less unanimous that hard decisions were the need of the hour, new member Rahul Gandhi suggested that hard decisions needed to be pushed through with some sweeteners.

Soon after, social welfare ministries were issued instructions for inducing a little bit of populism to ease the impact of tough decisions.

One of the important outcomes of this calculated populism is relief to the country'sforest population. Honey, a major forest produce, will be brought under the category of agriculture products and a minimum support price, like in crops, would be paid. The Planning Commission is expected to give its final recommendations on the subject.

Likewise, attempts would be made to hasten the pace of the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Development Programme in cities, prioritise low cost housing for the poor and a revision of rates for daily wage earners. The bugle for the elections have clearly been blown.

While senior DMK functionaries maintain a studied silence, grassroots workers of the party, according to our survey, might actually be weighing in for Narendra Modi come the 2014 elections, reports Appanasamy

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) is facing a bit of an embarrassment. While it is still firmly behind the Congress in the UPA government, the mood among the lower level party workers seems to be different. According to the survey conducted by TSI, more than 39 per cent of DMK voters in Tamil Nadu will support the BJP if Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi is the prime ministerial candidate. Compared to that, the Congress heir apparent Rahul Gandhi has scored a mere 19 per cent.

Not unexpectedly, the result of the poll left the middle-level leaders of the party red in the face, scrambling to explain. “These are things that only the party high command can decide. We should not be talking about it till such time as a decision is given out by them, not even within party circles. Our leader (M Karunanidhi) will take the right decision for the party and we will abide by it. Till then, we cannot further comment on this,” said one, on the condition of anonymity.

The Dravidian parties, like most other regional parties, have always vacillated between the Congress and the BJP. Tamil Nadu had been a Congress stronghold before Jayalalithaa and her AIADMK swept the Parliamentary elections in the state in 1998 in alliance with the BJP. The DMK would go on to adopt the strategy next year and win even more seats in the Lok Sabha election of 1999. Both parties have, since then, supported the Congress time and again. But even the most rabid party worker knows that these alliances have been mostly opportunistic.

This time around, the balances seem to be tipping in favour of the BJP. The image of industrialisation and pro-progress activism that Modi has cultivated and promoted through popular media and news channels has gained quite a bit of traction among DMK workers, particularly the middle class. What has been more beneficial for Modi is his handling of the major earthquakes in the city. The common man seems to be firmly behind Modi's media-propagated image of a shining beacon. One DMK supporter, Dravida Mani from north Chennai, was quite unambiguous when he said, “If we do have an alliance with the BJP, we will work our very best to put Narendra Modi in the prime minister's seat.”

On the other hand, the last few years of UPA rule have not been the best, marked as it was with scams, allegations of corruption and economic strife. The recent “harsh decisions” taken by the government by way of FDI in the retail sector, diesel price hike and rationing of LPG cylinders have done nothing to cement support for the UPA among the middle class. Naseer from Ambattur echoes popular sentiment when he says, “The eight years that the UPA government has been in power has only aggravated dissatisfaction of the common man. Is BJP not a better option?”

To compound the problems for the grand old party, Rahul Gandhi has not exactly been able to solidify his claims to being a national leader. The debacle that the Congress faced in Uttar Pradesh is largely attributed to his strategies and that has not been missed by the public in Tamil Nadu. Adds Naseer, “The experiments made by Rahul in the 2011 provincial elections proved disastrous. His tireless propaganda did not produce anything near to the expected levels. So at present, the only hope is Modi.”

However, too much should not be read into the survey reports. “The idea of more volunteers wanting Modi to become the prime minister is not entirely true,” says AS Paneerselvam, the readers' editor of The Hindu. Even in AIADMK, no one knows whom to support except Jayalalitha. Actually, they are waiting for her lead, Paneerselvam adds.

While the popular sentiment is important, the final decision, as always, will lie with the chiefs. “In India, parliamentary elections are not held on the basis of prime ministerial candidates and their popularity. The members of Parliament ultimately decide the composition of the government and who becomes the prime minister, not popular sentiment,” says senior journalist Sigamani.

Both Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa have been known to rule over their parties with quite the iron hand. And the party members, too, have been only too willing to swear “complete loyalty” to their respective leaders. And why not? It does help later on to reap the benefits of power. DMK supporters declare vehemently: “Even if we personally favour Narendra Modi, in the elections we will vote according to our leader's choice. We will never betray our charismatic leader.”

Therefore, as far as Tamil Nadu is concerned, it is clearly all a question of who eventually gets the blessings of M Karunanidhi or J Jayalalithaa. Everything else can only be regarded as mere speculation at the present juncture. There could be many a twist between now and the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. 

Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
IIPM: What is E-PAT?
Planman Technologies is Leaders in educational publishing solutions
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri Dean Business School IIPM

IIPM Mumbai Campus

 

We face the problem of 'image vs reality'

IIPM Review MBA 2012

In an interview on a wide range of topics, the BJP party president, Nitin Gadkari tells TSI that this time around the party is concentrating its energies on the rural poor, the unorganised sector and the adivasis

Nitin Gadkari

What is going on in the BJP?

Things are on the right track though some time we face the problem of 'image vs reality’. We are a democratic party, not a family or proprietary concern. We are a collective leadership. BJP's critics say that the party is opportunistic, changing its policies to suit the situation of the moment. This has alienated your supporters. Comment. This is not true. There has been no change in the party’s policy. After my taking over as the BJP’s national president, we have been concentrating on five segments including SCs and STs to augment our vote bank. We are mobilising the unorganised sector. The Bharatiya Shramik Mahasangh held a conference of nearly 20,000 workers in New Delhi. We have been taking the help of the ‘Friends of BJP.’

At present, the BJP has 27 cells and groups working on different projects. Our 'good governance' approach is one of the measures to reach out to the new segments of the population. Besides Manipur, we will be fighting elections in Uttarakhand, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Goa. In Punjab and Uttarakhand, the challenge is to retain power.

Are you banking on the non-performance of the Congress?

We don’t wish to get elected on a negative plank. We are according priority to villages, the rural poor, the unorganised workers, the agriculture sector and on the economic issues. For us it is important to work for removal of poverty, employment generation and transforming agricultural and rural India economy.

We are evolving our strategies on these issues. At present, we are preparing documents on 32 subjects under the title ‘The Difference that We Made.’ This will highlight the good work we have done in the BJP-ruled states. Like, the Public Distribution System (PDS) in Chhattisgarh that helped in rooting out corruption. In Gujarat, the 14 per cent rate of growth tells the success story in this BJP ruled state.

So far, we have held 17 conclaves on different topics. Our other priority is tourism development. It is my dream that transport in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand runs on electricity because they are a power surplus state. Another thrust area will be the BLOT (build-lease-operate-transfer) model, which can materialise projects worth Rs 5,000 crore without investing any public funds. Simultaneously, we are working in fields such as bio-fuel, organic farming and yoga. They have a huge employment potential.

What about the Ram Mandir issue?

The path for the Ram Mandir has been cleared. The verdict of the Allahabad High Court is unambiguous. At present, the matter is before the Supreme Court.

What is your position on Foreign Direct Investment?

We are not against FDI per se. In the present situation, bringing FDI in retail will result in creating unemployment in this sector. There are an estimated five crore families in small and medium enterprises. We implemented FDI in power and infrastructure when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was leading the nation.

Do you support the malls of Reliance, Birla and Tata?

Indian industrialists have every right to open malls in India. But it is also true that small retailers face difficulties because of big players.

Today, the shared view is that BJP is a party of leaders. That it lacks cohesion and party workers?

I do not claim that everything is all right with us. But no, this is not true. We have several prominent leaders both at the centre and in the states. Our NDA-BJP chief ministers are doing extremely well. The GDP has shown a growth of 11 percent in Bihar. Madhya Pradesh, once called a sick state, has achieved a rate of 8.5 per cent growth. There is a perception that the RSS has appointed you... No. It is not correct. The RSS never appoints anyone in the BJP.

Does the RSS give you directions?

The RSS has been an integral part of my life. Only once in the last two years, has the RSS asked me to stand firmly behind Narendra Modi. Because he was facing difficulties. No other message has come from the RSS to me. You may write about the RSS but do verify the facts. The RSS never interferes in the functioning of the BJP.

You claim to be working on a strategy of winning 200 seats in the next Lok Sabha elections. Where are you going to get these seats?

Let me ask this question the other way round. Tell me the states which are favourable to the Congress? In the last election, we had won only 7 out of 70 seats in Rajasthan, Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh. This time, our tally in these states will easily go to 35-40.

Why is the BJP is called a communal party?

We may be called a communal party till we win 170 seats.

Will the BJP support the Lokayukta and Lokpal Bill?

Public sentiment demands action against the corrupt. I have told all elected representatives that politics is not a business to make money. We don’t claim that everybody in our party is honest. But it is our endeavour to provide a development oriented administration .

Do you support the agitation launched by Anna Hazare?

We support Anna’s movement. Some of the points raised by him are relevant.

Will Anna Hazare's agitation help you in the coming elections?

Anna is agitating to rid this country of corruption. We support his efforts. We will not seek his backing in elections. Your take on re-induction of Uma Bharti in the BJP. The party needs everyone who believes in BJP’s policies and programmes. Uma Bharti has her own image as a leader.

How do you rate Mayawati as a leader?

UP has suffered due to casteism. Mayawati indulged in caste politics and called it social engineering. But people are fed up with this now. They don’t want Mulayam’s goonda raj to return as well. The only options are the BJP and Congress.

Do you think the BJP will be able to put the Congress party on the back foot in the coming elections?

The Congress can’t answer questions on corruption, price rise and black money. Its credibility is lost due to 2G and Commonwealth Games scams.

During UPA-1 , there was an excuse that certain policies could not be pursued because of the Left Front. But that is not the case in the UPA-2. The Congress has finished the aam aadmi.

What is your stand on the issues like the food security bill?

The definition of the line of poverty must be revised to decide who are genuinely poor. They must be provided food at cheaper rates. It is not creditable to our country that people die of hunger.

Read also:  IIPM Reviews, IIPM Review Ranking/Rankings Across India, IIPM Faculty's Review on Thoughts and Courage, IIPM: The B-School with a Human Face and Zee Business Best B-School Survey 2012 - IIPM ranks 1st