Mamata Banerjee, the head of the Trinamool Congress and the chief minister of West Bengal, should earn no plaudits for her decision to walk out on the United Progressive Alliance (UPA). First of all, it is not over straightforward policy differences, as she would have the people of this country believe; the repeated references to West Bengal’s debt and the three-day delay in her ministers’ resignations make that quite clear. She is now, essentially, bargaining over the scope of reforms — 6-, 12-, or 24-cylinder caps and so on. Her objections to rising prices have not, in any case, stopped her from raising milk, power, and public transport prices in her own state, due to straitened finances. Apparently it’s only “anti-poor” if the Centre does it. Ms Banerjee’s reputation as a difficult ally will only be strengthened; in the long term, it is difficult to see what her state or party will gain. The UPA should stand firm, even if it means saying a permanent goodbye to its easy legislative majority.
After all, that supposed legislative majority has got it very little in the first place. Few enough impactful Bills were tabled because of the fear that the Congress’ allies, especially the Trinamool Congress, would not vote with the government when it counted. Thus, only a few non-controversial Bills have been passed of late. Yes, the UPA will be weaker in that it will become susceptible to no-confidence motions, and will become dependent on some combination of the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party, the Congress’ rivals in Uttar Pradesh; but the departure of the Trinamool, if permanent, will also lend the ruling alliance the strength that comes with increased decisiveness and purposive action. Rolling back the recent reformist moves wholesale to try and woo back its departing ally would, thus, be an error. The UPA must have had some inkling of the need to finally take a stand against its own paralysis: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, after all, was quoted as saying that “if we must go down, let us go down fighting”. These unlikely words should be the government’s motto. It needs to take a stand for reform and for policy action that is not shackled by regressive, behind-the-curve and hypocritical allies.
The hope for further legislative reforms should, thus, be zero. Yet the UPA should arrange for itself a window, perhaps six months long, for firm executive decisions to be taken to revive the economy. Shoring up non-tax revenues to reduce the likely slippage in the government’s fiscal deficit target of 5.1 per cent of gross domestic product could be one such step. Another could be to expedite the setting up of the proposed national investment board to push forward infrastructure clearances. Nutrient-based subsidies in fertiliser should be extended to urea; the UID scheme should be brought into service in certain sectors and areas. Coal royalties and licensing can be cleaned up swiftly. Two things will then be taken care of: first, if the government looks dynamic, allies might be tempted to return. And, second, this is the only real chance that the government has to create a record that it can take to the electorate, and for Dr Singh to recover his credentials as a reformer. As a minority government, the UPA should be bolder than ever with reform, free from the political compulsions of keeping a difficult ally in good humour and concerns over its numbers in the legislature. What it can do, it must — its political survival depends on it.
