The toll of opportunism

THE DEVELOPMENTS IN the BJP-led ruling coalition in Uttar Pradesh consequent to the removal of Mr. Naresh Agrawal from the State Cabinet may not lead to the fall of the Rajnath Singh Government as it is. Apart from the fact that Mr. Agrawal's whip evidently did not run within the 19-member-strong LCP Legislature party (for the simple reason that all these MLAs have seemed to choose their ministerial berths rather than their ``leader''), the BJP's managers seem to have roped in at least 9 MLAs belonging to Mr. Ajit Singh's Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and claimed to enjoy the support of 205 MLAs in the 403-strong State Assembly. Mr. Agrawal's announcement, soon after he was sacked from the State Cabinet, that his party had withdrawn support to the Government is now backed by only one member belonging to the party. And this has led to a split in the 19-member LCP with as many as 17 MLAs (who are also Ministers in the Rajnath Singh Cabinet) conveying to the Governor that they were not party to the decision to withdraw support. And this could take the strength of the ruling coalition to a higher number than the 205 claimed. And given this reality, Mr. Rajnath Singh's claims that he continues to enjoy majority support in the Assembly may be taken at its face value. However, in the event that his majority becomes open to doubt, the Governor, Mr. Vishnu Kant Shastri, will have to order the Chief Minister to prove his claims on the floor of the Assembly.

The developments, however, are a cause for concern in a larger context. If Mr. Agrawal's writ does not run in his own party's legislature wing, the reason is that a majority of his partymen are in no mood to give up their ministerial berths. The LCP, as an outfit, was formed and was sustained only on the basis of Cabinet berths to all the MLAs who left the Congress(I) four years ago to support Mr. Kalyan Singh as Chief Minister. In this sense, the BJP had managed a majority in the Assembly only by making a mockery of democratic principles and political values. Mr. Agrawal happened to be the leader of this group only because he was the contact person for the BJP's managers at that time. Interestingly, Mr. Rajnath Singh, as president of the Uttar Pradesh unit of the BJP, had played a crucial role in organising the defection and had no qualms about carrying on with Mr. Agrawal as Minister in his own Cabinet too. It is also a fact that after that, the LCP was just a platform consisting of such self-serving Ministers and it did not evolve as a political party in any sense. It is this character of the outfit - constituted by a set of men whose concerns began and ended with retaining their ministerial positions and the privileges that came with it - that is now in play. An important aspect of the democratic set up - the party being the basis of the discourse - stands negated now in Uttar Pradesh. This certainly is a cause for serious concern.

The time chosen by Mr. Rajnath Singh to send Mr. Agrawal out of the Cabinet is also significant. That the LCP as a party was hardly a factor in the electoral discourse in the State is a fact. Mr. Agrawal and the 18 others who were part of the outfit until now were hardly in a position to influence any poll outcome in the State; and in this sense the LCP had lost its relevance, with elections to the Assembly due in a few months. And this is where the BJP's new ally - Mr. Ajit Singh's RLD - becomes important. In this context it remains to be seen whether the support to Mr. Rajnath Singh from the nine-member-strong RLD would be without strings. Given the track record of the BJP leaders in Uttar Pradesh and also that of the RLD, it is difficult to assume that the new alignment was brought about for any larger cause. The brazen trading of ministerial berths and other public offices in exchange for legislative support has weakened the democratic set-up in the State.

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Section  : Opinion
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