Commentary/Saisuresh Sivaswamy

The final countdown has begun for the United Front

It does not need any political sagacity to know that the United Front government was on a short fuse since the time it assumed office a little over a year ago. In fact, it would defy every law of political survival if the Congress were to live up to its commitment of supporting this government, ``unconditionally'', for the full five years. Neither did the Congress expect to be held to this promise, nor does the United Front expect it to fulfill its commitment. The alliance between the two irreconcilable sides was a temporary one, despite the public stances of both the sides.

And the raison d'etre behind the two coming together was very clear: to wait for a depletion in the fortunes of a resurgent Bharatiya Janata Party. Various schools of thought had their own theory about when this would happen. Some felt that the BJP was a temporary phenomenon, subsisting only on the strength of the mandir/masjid wave, and since it had committed political hara kiri by pulling down the Babri Masjid which sustained it, there was no way it could continue to keep its votebank in thrall. Maximum, one year, went this reasoning.

The more conventional viewpoint, which was based more on the prevailing political reality, was different. This believed that the BJP may have used questionable means to reach the position it has, but there was nothing temporary about it. The truth, as so often is the case, may be somewhere in between.

That the Congress itself was uncomfortable supporting a combination of political parties that are inimical to it, was evident from the beginning. Given this factor, there was no way the former ruling party could continue to prop up the United Front government for long without in anyway letting its irritation show. It is not easy to accept the fact that a government dependent on you for survival is doing everything in its power to tarnish your image, never mind if it is merely by allowing the law take its own course. Former prime minister H D Deve Gowda did not think so, and that proved his downfall. He believed that he was answerable to no one, not his party or its supporters, a situation which was ostensibly rectified after April 11, when he was defeated on the floor of the Lok Sabha.

But the replacement of Deve Gowda with Gujral does not necessarily mean that the Congress would subsume either its identity or its interests and continue to support the United Front ad infinitum. And this is despite what the Congress president Sitaram Kesri may have said after carrying out the coup. For the record, his party may have intentions of propping up the UF government for its full tenure, but off the record there certainly is no chance it will live up to that commitment.

And interestingly, the party has started changing its tune even on record, although it still does not come out and say unequivocally that it will pull down the Gujral government. The change in its attitude came about during the recent All India Congress Committee session in Calcutta, when Kesri demonstrated just why he was dubbed an old man in a hurry. He left no one in doubt that he was in a hurry, when he called upon his party cadres to keep the powder dry. General elections, he predicted, would certainly be held within a year.

The United Front has demonstrated, despite the worst provocation, that it is not a house divided against itself. Yes, it often speaks in disparate voices, and takes ages to come to a common viewpoint. And, as the recent increase in the price of petroleum products shows, we even have the unusual sight of a supporting faction of the government urging its cadre to protest against the hike!

But as the crisis between March 30 to April 11 showed, when it comes to the crunch, it has decided to go down fighting. So, obviously, Kesri was not hinting at the possibility of some of the constituents withdrawing support and causing the downfall of the government. That can only happen with the Congress deciding that the time is opportune for it to face to the electorate once again. And, whatever straws in the wind that Kesri has relied on, his information is that a year from now, things would be favourable for the Congress.

At the moment, it is hard to see just what he is talking about, but the Congress president knows something that lesser mortals don't, something that gives him the confidence to believe that his party's fortunes would be on the upswing once again. From the ground level, however, it looks like he is being overly optimistic.

True, elections, like any other fight, are won in the mind, and possibly the kind of tough talking Kesri has been doing of late, he is trying to create the kind of environment that will present his party as a proactive one. Not only that, he has also tried to give better representation to the younger lot, not only by giving them representation on the Congress Working Committee, but also by pushing them into the limelight. The decision to field Madhavrao Scindia as the Congress's speaker in the recent special session of Parliament, thus, is a significant one.

Okay, that general election will be held in 1988 is a given. Which leaves the parties with around a year to get ready. Despite the sniggers, the BJP has a relatively easy task ahead. It is an Opposition party at the central level, and conventional wisdom has it that it is the Opposition that will benefit from the public's disenchantment with the ruling party. More important, there is no reason to believe that there has been any significant depletion in its ranks or votebank in the last one year; if anything, the mess in New Delhi, which is trying to pass off as coalition politics, should bring in some new adherents to its ranks.

And it is the Congress and the United Front which are left with an unenviable task ahead, that of explaining to the people the intricacies of why and how the two came together first and why and how they are fighting each other now. V P Singh has seen the incredulity of it all, which is why he has come out with a solution, but to understand and accept it calls for a high level of political sophistication. Let him try and get his formula past the classes first, the masses can come later.

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