Maya & NDA Dream Shattered, No More Red Clouds on the UPA Government

Manmohan Scripts India's New Politics By Gopal Mishra

With the passage of the Confidence Vote, Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh today unshackled his ruling United Progressive alliance from the dark shadow of the left parties.

This victory has also shattered the dream of the left parties to play a key role in the formation of a new anti-Congress alliance under the leadership of UP chief Minister, Mayawati.

The huge 19 votes margin also betrayed that the ruling alliance could make successful inroads into the formidable Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP). The BJP's nominee for the office of the Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, could not keep his flock of MPs intact in this high profile political battle.

With Mayawati ambition to become India's Prime Minister ended, her supporters are scared that she might face a number of prosecutions, especially for acquiring huge money against her known income. They also feel that she would find it difficult to run her government in UP, because the Congress and Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party may jointly become a formidable political force in UP, India's most populous state.

It must go to her credit that she could predict today's outcome yesterday. Her prediction that the BJP would save the Government has been proved correct. Of the 10 MPs, who abstained during the voting, included six members from the BJP. Apart from these absentees, four voted in favour of the confidence vote ignoring the party whip. Chandrababu Naidu, chief of the Telugu Desam party (TDP) who had proposed Mayawati for the post of the Prime Minister, too suffered. One TDP members abstained and one MP voted in favour of the government resolution.

During the second day of the debate, the House witnessed all possible histrionics, including allegation of harassment and threats to some MPs or offering of huge money to some members asking them to vote for the ruling alliance.

The performance of Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, who may face disciplinary action from the gang of Prakash Karat and Sitaram Yechuri in the CPM, conducted the House proceedings with dignity and with the needed neutrality.

The quality of debate today remained poor. The leaders of the left parties were expected to expose the weaknesses of the government; but they too resorted to indulge in the trivialities during the debate. The unfortunate part of the debate is that Prime Minister was not allowed to reply the debate. The Speaker asked him to submit his speech as a part of the record.

The ruling Congress Party used this opportunity to present its upcoming new star Rahul Gandhi. Some senior members of the opposition benches tried to ridicule him. However, he spoke quite well and asked the House to support for energy security to eradicate poverty.

Among the young speakers, Omar Abdullah, president of the National Conference, supported the Confidence Motion. He regretted that some political parties are trying to present a Muslim opposition to the proposed Indo-US nuclear deal.