Lessons from the past: wobbly coalition, threats of resignations & pressures on PM
By S.Narendra
(Former
Information Adviser, Principal Information Officer and Govt Spokesperson)
It was
close to 9PM The prime ministerial
delegation was at Palam airport. The special protection group (SPG)
had lined up the convoy of vehicles, at PM’s residence-7 Race Course Road
for taking PM Inder Kumar Gujral to the airport on his way to New York
via Germany. And, then, I was asked to convey to SPG that the PM had
postponed his trip. Read on.....
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| Contrary to his claim, Gujral was under a tremendous coalition pressure |
The United Front government headed by Prime Minister
Inder Kumar Gujral (1997-98) was a wobbly coalition, and had come to be
perceived as a government in transition. On one side the Congress president,
Sitaram Kesari, who was supporting the coalition from outside, was nursing his
own prime ministerial ambitions. Within
the coalition, Mulayam Singh Yadav of Samadwadi party, had a grievance against
Gujral. Yadav had almost become prime minister when Devegowda resigned in Apirl
1997. But the CPM guru, Harkishan Singh
Surjeet had manoeuvred to put Gujral in front of Yadav at the last minute. A
sullen Yadav had to accept the post of defence minister under Gujral. His
tenure as the defence minister (in-absentia) was
mostly spent in Lucknow, plotting against his arch foe, Mayavati ( of Bahujan Samajwadi party), who
was the chief minister of UP. Yadav had vowed to oust Mayavati by hook or crook
and was exerting almost daily pressure on Gujral to dismiss Mayavati government
and impose the president’s rule.
A Foreign & Domestic
Crisis: The coalition
was lurching from crisis to crisis and was literally living on borrowed time.
The central government employees had threatened to go on strike over a pay
dispute arising out of the 5th pay commission. The prime minister had told the
settlement negotiating team of cabinet ministers that the strike should be
averted at any cost as he was scheduled to address the annual UN General
Assembly and also meet the American president Bill Clinton in September. The
government had reached an expensive settlement (that cost over Rs 10,000 crore,
over and above the pay hike recommended by the pay commission) with the employees,
by virtually ignoring the finance minister P. Chidambaram who had the difficult
task of balancing the budget. This expensive give away upset states’ finances
as well, as the latter had to extend similar pay benefits to their employees.
As one shadow on the PM’s proposed
trip to the US, preceded by a two-day visit to Germany, was removed, another
dark shadow was hovering above the coalition. The defence minister Mulayam
Singh Yadav wanted the prime minister to dismiss the UP government of Mayawati
before his departure. The central home and Law ministries and the UP governor,
Romesh Bhandari were under considerable
political pressure to find some valid reason to destabilise the elected UP
government in order to accommodate a rebellious ally.
PM sandwiched: The most complicating
factor was that the parties forming the Janata government , while in
opposition, were vehemently critical of the way the previous Congress governments had misused the Article: 356 for dismissing non-Congress state governments. Such misuse
of had also been taken to the Supreme Court and the latter had now laid
down strict guidelines to be followed
before dismissing any state government .
The prime minister was really in
quandary because of yet another reason. A new President, K.R.Narayanan, was now
in Rashtrapati Bhavan and he was reputed
to be a stickler for constitutional propriety. Any recommendation made by the
Prime minister and his cabinet to dismiss Mayavati government had to have a
legal basis and fulfill the Supreme Court guidelines as well.
Among other things,
the Supreme Court had laid down that the state governor recommending the
dismissal of a government must establish with facts that the government in power
had lost its legislative majority. And the only way the governor can come to
that conclusion is after the government seeks (and loses), a vote of confidence
in the Legislature. In this case, Mayawati had solid majority behind her. The
PM was between a rock and a hard place.
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| Mulayam - Hard Stand |
Shadow Play: The PM convened cabinet
meeting after cabinet meeting and some of them were huddled inconclusively for
several hours. Such meetings were mere shadow plays. Ministers and we officials who attended such meetings knew
the futility of such exercises, However, the
meeting kept Mulayam Singh Yadav’s hopes alive and the PM was buying time. The
governor, an adroit political player, who was under pressure from the defence
minister would send copious faxes narrating the on-going horse trading in
Lucknow but would not contain the crucial recommendation for imposition of the
President’s rule. The Home Minister Inderjit Gupta (of CPI) was deadly opposed
to imposition of the president’s rule, without the governor’s recommendation.
After each inconclusive meeting, I was required to brief the media about the cabinet
decision (without mentioning the deliberations and differences of opinion).
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| Mayawati - had the last laugh! |
PM Cancels Foreign Trip: The day of PM’s departure
had finally arrived. The cabinet met intermittently from morning till about
7.30 pm. In his private conversation, Gujral had told me that he was inclined
to recommend the President’s rule and pass the buck to the Rastrapati Bhavan. But
his home minister Inderjit Gupta of CPI was strongly opposed to it. The day’s
cabinet proceedings were mostly devoted to persuading Inderjit Gupta to bail
out the PM, who was to board the plane around 10 pm.
Gujral summoned me to 7, Race Course
Road and I went to meet him around 8 pm. I conveyed to PM that the latest media
gossip indicating that the defence minister
had planned to announce his resignation the next morning, when the PM was
stepping into Germany on the first leg of his visit abroad. The PM got greatly
agitated by this piece of news and we discussed the possible course of action
available in the circumstances. While discussing the political mess, I
submitted to him that since the centre piece of his trip was the address to the
UN General Assembly, and the scheduled meeting with the US President Clinton,
he should try to save that end of the trip. It was possible to buy some time by
skipping Germany. The halt at Germany halt which was a little more than a
refuelling stop, en-route to New York. The available time could be used to explore
the possibility of using the good offices of the CPM chief minister, Jyoti Basu of West Bengal and others to bring
round the Communist party’s home minister Inderjit Gupta to agree to recommend the president rule over
UP.
.
PM’s Delegation Disembarks at Palam: This
suggestion appealed to the PM and he readily instructed me: “inform the Special
Protection Group that I have postponed the visit”. The SPG officials who were waiting outside with the convoy to take PM to
Palam airport could not believe their ears when I told them that the PM has
postponed his trip and they should inform the PM’s principal secretary and
others who were waiting to board the plane at Palam about the decision.
I was told that the external affairs
ministry was very upset about the cancellation of the visit to Germany. The
principal secretary N.N.Vohra, however, appreciated my suggestion to PM to sort
out the political knot before his departure for a more important diplomatic
engagement.
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| The Author (sunarendra@gmail.com) |
President says ‘NO’: To complete the story, the
following day, after day-long deliberations, the Union Cabinet recommended the
imposition of the President‘s rule in UP, and I was instructed around 1 AM to
announce it to the media. Everyone knew that this recommendation would be
returned without approval by the President. Before daylight, K.R.Narayanan had
sent back the cabinet recommendation for reconsideration, raising some
questions for which the government had no satisfactory answers.
And this paved the
way for the PM to board the plane for New York.
As information adviser and Government Spokesperson,
sometimes one had to stray into the role
of a political consultant as well - because, information, media and politics are first
cousins.
