Coalition will restore balance and survive: K'taka RS MP M V Rajeev Gowda

"Many issues need to be sorted internally by the party leadership by taking the MLAs into confidence. I think that has been going on," he says

M V Rajeev Gowda, a former professor at IIM Bangalore and Congress Rajya Sabha MP from Karnataka, tells Archis Mohan why the Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) coalition government will survive in the state and how the Union Budget has little to prevent India from sliding into an economic recession or, as he terms it, a “Modi slump”.

What is the latest on the political drama in Karnataka?

I think the coalition will restore balance and most likely survive the trust vote (scheduled tentatively for later this week in the Assembly). The situation is certainly looking better than the initial stages. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is trying to engineer that the government falls down, but the party in the state is itself a divided house. There is infighting in the BJP and they are busy plotting against their only vote getter in the state.

The Congress and JD(S) leaders have blamed the BJP for the situation. However, there are enough internal contradictions within the Congress, and between the alliance.

A couple of things haves happened after the Lok Sabha results came out (in which BJP won 25 of the state’s 28 seats). Some people have become reckless and adventurous. They are emboldened and believe their power to threaten has increased, and that by lining up these MLAs wanting to quit they can bring down the government. However, this counter threat of disqualification will take care of that.

What has actually happened is that several MLAs wish to be ministers, but any council of ministers can accommodate only so many. A large number of MLAs have been multiple times legislators, and there is very little to argue that somebody does not deserve (to be minister). In such a situation, there is a need to come up with a formulae or criteria that would decide who gets a ministry and not, that includes being able to persuade people who have been ministers for a long time to step aside and give scope to newer people. Many issues need to be sorted internally by the party leadership by taking the MLAs into confidence. I think that has been going on, and every time a cabinet is formed it is formed after certain amount of time is spent arriving at a consensus.

The developments in Karnataka, Goa, Telangana… Are these also a sign of hopelessness among Congress leaders because of the confusion bedevilling the party at the top?

Not at all. Actually, the Congress is a well-structured organisation. The state units, their heads, general secretary in-charge of state units — all those systems and processes are absolutely in place. We are eagerly looking forward to working on the transition and with the leadership of the party, guided by our former president (Rahul Gandhi) in active role.

As for Goa, of the two Lok Sabha seats in the state, we won one. Many of the MLAs who have defected are Christians, who have benefitted from the Congress support base but are just using this opportunity to become ministers right now. So one of the larger themes is, just as we saw in Telangana (where Congress MLAs joined the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi) and Andhra Pradesh, people want instant gratification. They were elected as MLAs, and they need the next step now (of becoming ministers) and that is pretty much what is going on.

In your Rajya Sabha speech during the Budget discussion, you said the country was on the verge of recession. Are you not being alarmist when the government has promised investments of Rs100 trillion in infrastructure?

Oh really! You know that is the biggest jumla. They have given us a committee in response to questions on where is that money going to come from. Why would anyone trust this government’s management of the economy? Look at the GDP figures, which have seen continuous decline in the last four quarters. Look at any of the economic indicators – automobile sales are down, foreign direct investment is low, savings are down, consumption is down, and revenue from GST is down. However, the government is talking 8 per cent growth and a $5 trillion economy. 

We are concerned that the government is in denial about these things. By the way, I do not have to make these statements about recession myself. This is what I hear from industry, from other economists. I had written an article sometime back stating that this is going to be a “Modi slump”. This is a “Modi slump”.

The government has identified disinvestment a key area to generate resources, but you say they have no strategy.

Look at their previous track record. They had the ONGC and LIC buy stakes in other PSUs in the name of disinvestment. I am not saying they do not have the capability. Some of the initial disinvestment was done by Arun Shourie during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA government. However, they certainly are not doing anything of significance that would make it work properly. The things about disinvestment to watch out for are whether the government would sell the family jewels to crony capitalists. This is not the kind of disinvestment we expect. I would certainly like to see who comes and buys Air India, or Jet Airways.

On the face of it, there seems confusion on disinvestment within the Congress. Some oppose all disinvestment, but people like P Chidambaram and you have a more nuanced approach to the issue.

There is a difference. We say we should move out of non-strategic non-core sectors, and that is what our manifesto for the Lok Sabha election said. What is happening with this government is that it is selling out of desperation. They do not know how else to raise the money. They are unable to run the economy in the manner that it generates resources of its own. One part is desperation and the other part is bringing back crony capitalism, with a leading defence public sector undertaking in the process of being sold to industrialist Anil Ambani.

When senior Congress leader P Chidambaram said this government has mooted no structural reforms, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the previous Modi government carried out as many as 16 structural reforms.

Out of the 16, which are the ones that qualify as structural reforms under the BJP government? I would readily concede that the goods and service tax and the insolvency and bankruptcy code are two structural reforms under the BJP. To claim that Start Up Stand Up India was a structural reform in the absence of having created anything dramatic, or Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana is such a reform, these hardly count. The FM’s effort was more to mock Chidambaram.

Journalists have been barred from entering the Ministry of Finance unless they have an appointment. How do you see this?

It is part of this government’s effort to control and stifle the media. It has increased tax on newsprint and stopped advertisements to some of the country’s most reputed media houses and now this. These are all ways of strangling media freedom.