Evading the larger issue

THE `CRISIS' TRIGGERED by the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee's declaration of intent to quit office has dissipated, as it was expected to, with the ruling National Democratic Alliance true to style pledging its ``unqualified faith and trust'' in his leadership. As an earnest of the coalition's readiness to address Mr. Vajpayee's concerns about lack of cohesion among the constituents, the NDA leadership has promised to formulate a code of conduct, assigning the task to a four- member panel. On the face of it, the shock therapy would appear to have had the desired effect of getting the NDA partners to fall in line, at least for now and in a formal sense. That such commitments, driven as they invariably are by hard calculations of self-interest of the individual partners, are not intended to be taken seriously should be clear to anyone who is familiar with the functioning of political conglomerates the country has seen at the Central level especially since 1996. And the track-record of BJP-led coalitions has been quite dismal, what with resolves on cohesiveness and self-restraint being flouted brazenly by one constituent or another.

All the display of `solidarity' and the re-dedication to work (under Mr. Vajpayee) as a ``solid phalanx'' orchestrated by the NDA at its meeting on Wednesday cannot conceal the `message' a fuming Shiv Sena has sent by its non-participation. For all the favourable response Mr. George Fernandes managed to elicit from Mr. Bal Thackarey - to the extent of getting him to distance himself from the Shiv Sena MP, Mr. Sanjay Nirupam's remarks implicating the PMO in the UTI scam and to reassure Mr. Vajpayee of support to the NDA regime under him - there is hardly anything to suggest that the party supremo had been won over completely and to the point of making Mr. Nirupam withdraw (as yet) the accusations that had hurt the Prime Minister. According to some reports, the Shiv Sena would seem to believe that, in the `resignation drama', Mr. Nirupam was being made a ``scapegoat'' for the power struggle within the BJP itself. In effect, what is sought to be done in the name of `cohesiveness' and `adherence to the norms of a coalition system of governance' is to gag the voice of an ally that chooses to speak up against the murky goings-on in the corridors of power. This, surely, cannot be the right or effective way of ensuring a cohesive governance. What has been attempted, in the wake of the resignation threat held out by Mr. Vajpayee, is essentially in the nature of a political management of the uneasy coalition and the tactic of shock treatment may have paid off, for now. But the basic issues related to `accountability' - raised in the context of the UTI scam and accusations linking high-ranking functionaries in the PMO - remain unaddressed and the Prime Minister has hardly helped to carry conviction by cursorily dismissing allegations of the PMO's involvement.

Viewed in a larger perspective, Mr. Vajpayee's `resignation threat' would appear to have been intended to reassert his authority as the head of the coalition government and to convey to his own party that he would not like to be dictated to or pushed round by the party leadership in running the affairs of the Government or the alliance. The `enough is enough' message he delivered at the NDA meeting is apparently directed as much at the BJP and its leadership as at the other members of the alliance. It is less than a week since the BJP executive came up with some carping criticism of the Government and as good as set the agenda for India-Pakistan engagement and virtually faulted it on the UTI issue. For his part, Mr. Jana Krishnamurthi wanted the NDA to evolve norms for re-admission of parties that had earlier quit for making opportunistic forays - his strong line came in the context of the vigorous push being made by the PMK and the Trinamool Congress for re-entry. The fact that the PMK was allowed to participate in the NDA's Wednesday meeting conveyed its own message to the BJP leadership.

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Section  : Opinion
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