Recent events in national capital are following a well
written script. SP moved close to support the government (although in the name
of keeping BJP away from power), BSP without participating in the country wide
strike indicates that she may be ready for some kind of adjustment; but it was
Nitish Kumar who shot the best of all by saying 'I will help anyone form the
next government at the Centre if it grants special status to Bihar'. It is yet
to see whether the statement is only to raise his posture in NDA coalition
vis-a-vis Narendra Modi for the position of NDA’s PM candidate in next general
elections.
May be this is the flip side of democracy, national
parties are forced to come to the feet of small parties, having 10-15 members,
to assure majority. Looking from other end of the mirror, it looks good as
well. After all national parties are forced to give an ear to the woes and
problems of people represented by these small parties.
At this point government may seem to be vulnerable but
strong enough to continue. If UPA II survives this crisis, which it will surely
do, we may be able to expect a strong and decisive government. After all they
don't have to fear Mamta till next general elections in 2014.
The million dollar question is, will the government ‘bite
more bullets’ of reforms and arrest India’s relative decline in economic front?
Or we have to wait till the crisis of
next sovereign rating downgrading hits our door? History doesn’t seem to be
promising. During the signing of ‘Civil nuclear agreement’ with US, government
seemed to be strong and decisive after thwarting the danger from Left, only to
go for a long sleep. I think the biggest gainer in this whole drama is SP, as there is a
possibility for getting additional financial assistance for UP from Union
government, at the expense of Mamta.
References:
I personally think the stage for this drama had been set with the Presidential Elections. The ruling coalition had covered its bases. The turnaround by Samajwadi Party to support Mr. Pranab Mukherjee as President was probably to downgrade TMC's leverage in the government. The Congress probably wanted TMC out of the government, if not the coalition itself. Else, there is very little to explain how the government developed the guts to bring FDI in retail less than a year after it had been forced to rollback the proposal.
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