Assembly polls 2013: Dissent grows within a bruised UPA

The Telugu Desam Party (6MPs) said it would move its own no-confidence motion

A day after Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said people did not want weak leaders, signs of erosion within the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government appeared to be spreading, with Congress Member of Parliament Mani Shankar Aiyar, in a signed newspaper article, favouring an Opposition role for the party. “A break from governance would be a welcome break that could be used to refit the party as the nation’s natural party of governance in the 21st century,” the Rajya Sabha MP wrote in his  column.

Aiyar’s remarks were against the backdrop of the Congress party’s Assembly election debacle in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi.

“The current and prospective electoral reverses for the Congress are thus Rahul’s golden opportunity,” he said, referring to UPA’s potential prime ministerial candidate.

In a separate TV interview, Aiyar also said making Manmohan Singh the prime minister in 2009 was a mistake.

“Who can be even half-way realistic and expect the Congress to return to power?” he told Reuters.

Congress spokesman Bhakta Charan Das said Aiyar’s opinion was personal and not the party’s view. But he agreed there was a need to analyse what went wrong. “The party will definitely introspect and we must come out with a very good approach to revitalise ourselves,” he said.

Till evening, the party had not taken any action against Aiyar. Congress President Sonia Gandhi is in South Africa, attending the memorial service for Nelson Mandela.

That’s not all. Seven MPs from Seemandhra, many from the Congress, pressed their no-confidence motion against their own government. Though the Samajwadi Party (22 MPs) said it would provide moral support to the Seemandhra MPs, as it was opposed to division of states, the party did not sign on the requisition for a no-confidence motion. The Telugu Desam Party (six MPs) said it would move its own no-confidence motion.

Signatures of at least 50 MPs are needed to move a motion of no-confidence against the government. And, while TDP claimed its motion had the backing of 84 MPs, the number was not verifiable and the indications were the Seemandhra MPs would not be able to cobble those many. To add another vocal twist, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee arrived in the capital but said her Trinamool Congress (19 MPs) would prefer an adjournment motion, and not a no-confidence motion (the latter she dubbed “drama”).

On the other hand, the Bharatiya Janata Party — ready to strike but apparently afraid to wound — is also preparing to move a no-confidence motion against Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar for not allowing a discussion on the 2G telecom spectrum scam report, tabled in the House on Tuesday. The party said, for tactical reasons, it would not associate itself with the no-confidence motion against the government, the clearest indication BJP was not interested in hastening elections. However, the Speaker’s office said it had not received a notice yet.

The Aam Aadmi Party held an internal meeting and confirmed it would not tie up with anyone in Delhi. The suggestion that it could provide issue-based support to BJP was rejected. Fresh elections are now inevitable. Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam MP A Raja, at the centre of the spectrum controversy, and two of his party colleagues said they wanted all other business to be suspended and a discussion on the Joint Parliamentary Committee report on the issue, claiming the report was “incomplete and inaccurate”.