NATIONAL POLITICS
In the last seven months the HD Deve Gowda Government has demonstrated that, as far as inaction is concerned, it can beat the previous Narasimha Rao Government hollow.
What is missing in Deve Gowda is a sense of direction, of purpose, of a drive to assure the public that there is a Government engaged in functioning and not just one that is drifting all the time. Deve Gowda does not have the mettle that can make a Prime Minister out of a provincial satrap. He has provided no leadership to his Government, much less to the public.
In his official stance - or even in non-official encounters with him - Deve Gowda presents a sorry spectacle of one who can hardly contribute anything by way of either political understanding or practical horse-sense to politics and governance. Tenacity is the watchword with the Prime Minister ... It is difficult for any observer or commentator to escape the strong impression that he is thoroughly incapable of holding the important charge ... Deve Gowda has to thank his stars for having been extraordinarily fortunate to come into an eminence which he hardly deserves - neither by competence nor by wisdom. There is no department of governance in which he can claim to have left a mark ...The United Front leaders have to take the responsibility for having foisted on the country a Prime Minister who they certainly do not deserve.
These are hard words, but politics is a hard task- master. No Prime Minister has had so little to show by way of contribution to the governance of the nation when so much was called for. Deve Gowda's sense of proportion seems to be ill-at-ease with the office he holds. That is why, for instance, he has not been able to convince the people about the mistake of his tete-a-tete with Bal Thackeray when his party and Government claim to be combating communalism.
With the Prime Minister as a negative factor, it is not surprising that the, United Front Government has contributed little ... There have been important areas of advancement ... but the credit for each one of such successes has to go to the minister concerned. For instance, External Affairs is one such Ministry, but for that Foreign Minister IK Gujral and his team deserve all the credit. A Prime Minister (cannot) survive for long basking in the reflected glory of one of his mistakes.
Apology of Governance
The leaders of the United Front owe an explanation to the people as to what made them foist such a total misfit into the office of the Prime Minister. The need of the hour was the setting up of a Government politically strong and organisationally well-knit. The United Front leaders should have applied their minds more seriously in working out a politically identifiable leadership and organisationally a unified establishment to run the Government. Instead, the leaders of the United Front have depended on a common minimum programme which by itself could never have been a guide for the day-to-day functioning of any Government. The Government was supposed to be guided by a steering committee, but its meetings have been few and far between. Choice of a Prime Minister bereft of leadership qualities has brought the Government much ridicule.
To expect such a Government to survive is to expect a hopelessly doomed patient to bounce out of the intensive care unit. Day after day, week after week, the Government is confronted with more and more intractable complications with less and less capacity to solve any. Also, it is ... other liabilities as well that the United Front has to shoulder. Conspicuous in the list in the position
Janata Dal's acting president and Chief Minister of Bihar, Laloo Prasad Yadav. Mr. Yadav has by now amply demonstrated that he deserves every bit of the notoriety that he has earned with his thorough incompetence. Investigations into the multi-crore corruption in the Animal Husbandry Department has revealed how a scam has been nourished by his Government. With the Chief Minister now having faced the CBI grilling over this scandal, there is little doubt that Yadav's days in the Chief Minister's office are numbered. The Bihar case has once again proved that corruption and maladministration often to go hand-in-hand.
Viewed in this background, the recent excitement within the Congress ... is not in the least surprising. The Congress leadership is now getting ready for the opportunity to return to power. It is amazing how, despite all the scandalous cases of corruption in which some of its leaders have been caught and implicated, the Congress party members are not at all down and out (and) are nurturing hopes of early return to power – preferably without the ordeal of a general election. They would not mind even joining Deve Gowda to begin with, if necessary. And once the camel enters the tent, the Congress will wield the whip.
Sandhya Jain on Kesri's Ideological Quest
Sitaram Kesri's. Frenzied search for a consensus to get him the post and concentrate power in his person while simultaneously seeking to revive the Nehru-Gandhi legacy is a classic case of political schizophrenia.
Congressmen realise that an. ideological vacuum is gnawing the party. They are unable to face up to the fact that the country's socio-economic-political environment has been so transformed since the days when. Nehru ruled the roost with his socialism-secularism-non-alignment blueprint, that all the king's horses cannot restore the pre-eminence of the Nehruvian framework. And in the absence of a viable ideology, the Congress cannot come back at the Centre.
Charisma is no substitute for the loss of a viable ideology and sustainable vote-bank. The party made its decisive break with socialism under Rajiv Gandhi. Rao as the Prime Minister merely furthered the liberalisation process.
Similarly, Rajiv Gandhi turned secularism on its head. Jawaharlal Nehru's concept involved remaining aloof from intra-Hindu conflicts, non-interference in minority affairs, and patronage of minorities and depressed sections. Indira Gandhi followed the prescription, though electoral compulsions after 1977 gave her brand of secularism a pro-minority. Rajiv Gandhi jumped headlong into the most explosive intra-Muslim and Hindu-Muslim conflicts of our times – the Shah Bano and the Ram Janmabhoomi issues. Both interventions were clumsy and ill-advised.
On the Ram Janmabhoomi issue, he dithered so badly between the need to come to terms with "ram Rajya" and the desire for a purely non-religious modernism, that he alienated aroused Hindus on the one hand and Muslims and anti-religious or non-religious Hindus on the other. In the end he was simply swamped by the "Ram wave".
That leaves us with non-alignment. Here Rajiv Gandhi is not guilty; international winds of change caused it to wither away.
Rao tried to cover up the ideological vacuum by making pragmatism and consensus the organising principles of his Government, and seeking accommodation with all opposition parties, including the BJP. It was a faultless strategy, and the BJP's responsiveness made it a considerable success. For a while it seemed that contentious issues like the reconstruction of the Ram mandir would be put on the backburner.
Rao did not have the gumption to declare the (Congress) emperor naked (of ideology) and present the party with an alternate, and perhaps viable, socio-economic-political framework. The result was that called off the successful "tacit alliance" with the BJP, with consequences that are there for anyone to see. However unpalatable this may be to Congressmen today, the fact remains that the Kesri-Sonia Gandhi duo has singularly failed to address itself to the critical issues of ideology-based and votebank. On the contrary Kesri has continued Rajiv Gandhi's policy of turning the Nehruvian ideology on its head and rushing in where angels fear to tread.
Mr. Kesri's espousal of job reservations for minorities, which even sections of the Muslims view as a dubious gain, is' a classic instance of communal intervention on the side of obscurantist and reactionary forces. Similarly, his excessive championing of Dalits and backward castes cannot but increase upper caste reservations against the party.
So can the Congress under Kesri legitimately stake claim to a Nehru-Gandhi legacy, even with the blessings of Sonia Gandhi? The answer must be: Nehru, no; Gandhi, yes. This brings us back to the central issue, that Congress can no longer avoid fashioning and ideology in consonance with its current (and projected) social base. Rao, who could once line up the entire south behind him, may yet have the last laugh.
It's Kesri Congress Editorial, The Indian Express, 10 January, 1997
The Congressmen are living up to their tradition of finding all the virtues in their leader. The decision of the Congress Working Committee to favour party chief Sitaram Kesri as the consensus nominee for the post of president of the Congress Parliamentary Party conforms to this trait. All the Chanakyan strategies of Rao to have someone of his choice as the CPP leader seem to have come to naught. The strong support he received from the CWC members marks the coming of age of Kesri's leadership.
For the present, the leadership of the CPP is of little real consequence. What makes it attractive is that in the event of cataclysmic political changes forcing the President to give the Congress a chance, it will be Kesri who alone will get the presidential invitation. The UF Government will have to pay him greater attention than has been the case so far.
Call it the triumph of his manipulative politics or whatever, Kesri has proved wrong all those who believed that he was merely keeping the seat of Congress president warm ... It is a remarkable achievement in realpolitik. His ability to manage contradictions as proved in the successful handling of the Mandal issue ... will certainly stand in good stead. But to exploit such talent with greater benefit, he will first have to gain control of the lovers of power. Needless to say, it means reviving the moribund party, which in the popular perception has become a by-word for corruption.
National Press on Kesri's Emergence as Leader of Congress
Kesri Does It Editorial, The Hindustan Times, 4 January, 1997
Sitaram Kesri is perhaps the first Congress president who seemed to be a too much of a hurry to become a self-anointed leader. (His) election without a contest cannot properly be called a choice of consensus. At the same time it is undeniable that in the event of a contest (he) would have won by an overwhelming majority. Congressmen instinctively prefer consensus to open contest. The Congress proves the Wodehousian dictum that while the hour produces the man, it also exposes the washouts. Any role that the Congress may want to play in shaping the nation's politics would demand from the party a large measure of cohesion and clear-sightedness. One of the major issues will be to lend clarity to its relations with the ruling UF. The Congress commitment to support government from outside has by now become conditional. Long-term planning for the party is preferable to short-term governance. The election to the CPP leadership of Mr. Kesri is at once an opportunity and a trap.
Kesri may not Rest on Laurels Editorial, The Pioneer, 10 January, 1997
The ease with which Mr. Kesri has triumphed over his rivals once again underlines the distaste of Congressmen for any kind of contest for the top slot and their aversion to more than one power centre within the party. While the ascendance of Mr. Kesri as the undisputed leader of the Congress has turned out to be a tame affair, the implications of the changes in the party are nevertheless likely to be sweeping. Having won the sweepstakes within the Congress. The rise of Mr. Kesri is likely to be followed almost inevitably by heightened sniping at the minority UF regime by Congressmen. Kesri would be tempted to pull the rug from under Deve Gowda's feet sooner rather than later. The accompanying political drama promises to be more engaging.
Vidya Subrahmaniam On the Kesri Phenomenon
One man and one post is exactly the kind of issue that Kesri's future critics can be expected to rake up. Kesri and Pawar have different agendas. Mr. Kesri gives the impression of wanting to dig in his heels and working for the Congress's revival. Pawar is clearly a man in a hurry. His supporters are not even trying hide their impatience to participate in governance, either by themselves or in a coalition set-up. This shortcut cannot help the Congress, which needs to be attended to with patience. If it is a fact that its decline started in the '80s 'with the loss of its base to religion and caste-specific parties, a patchwork arrangement will only worsen the malady.
Zafar Agha and Harinder Baweja On Kesri's Assault on UF Government
From the ramparts of the Congress headquarters at 24, Akbar Road, the call to battle has been sounded. Once proud, once victorious, the Congress had begun to resemble a retreating army, almost resigned - through its ineptness - to defeat. Its soldiers lethargic, its leader Narasimha Rao, reclusive, and its direction unsure. Till Sitaram Kesri, fitted into the general's jacket, decided it was time to marshal his forces.
Kesri has worked wonders - in not only shaking up the Congress, but also giving the United Front (UF) Government some anxious moments.
The speed with which the 80-year-old Kesri has made his moves - aimed at capturing the party headquarters first, and perhaps the government itself later - has stunned everyone.
The assault by Kesri has come at a time when the BJP, the single-largest party, is beset with internal problems and the UF remains a fragile coalition. What Kesri has managed to do is bring the Congress back to the political centre stage, a remarkable achievement, considering that it only recently received its worst ever electoral drubbing and several of its former ministers have been charged with corruption.
Kesri has his vulnerabilities - having only stood once for a Lok Sabha election, he has usually entered Parliament through the Rajya Sabha. All his political life,he has been a backroom operator, or at best a loyal lieutenant. Never able to build a base of his own, he learnt to survive by just one credo: to be at the right place at the right time. And at a time when the Congress' chances of winning an election are remote, he has given the party hope. The first results of Kesri's damage-control operations are already in evidence. A sterner test awaits him in February when the Congress tries to retain its government in Punjab. At the moment that looks unlikely. But after five years of Rao, Kesri has at least proved that a general who leads from the front rarely fails to rally the troops behind him.
National Committee for Celebration of Birth Centenary of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose
Names of Muslim Members:
1. C.M. Ibrahim, Minister, Government of India
2. Mohammed Shafi Qureshi, Governor, M.P
3. A.R. Kidwai, Governor, Bihar.
4. Farooq Abdullah, Chief Minister, J&K
5. Najma Heptulla, Dy. Chairman, Rajya Sabha
6. Sikander Bakht, M.P.
7. Syed Shahabuddin, ex-M.P.
Surendra Mohan on the BJP's Suicidal Strategy
The zigzags of the BJP's political line would baffle anyone including its staunchest supporters. The flexibility of manoeuvre it has displayed in moving from the core agenda of Hindutva to moderation and back is an indication of its confusions rather than its suppleness. In 1994, when it was preparing for assembly elections in six states it opted for the three point programme of probity in public life, national security and self-reliance or Swadeshi. However, it could not resist politicising the communally sensitive abattoir and Idgah issues. it made much of the infiltration of Bangladeshis in Mumbai and sought the deletion of names of hundreds of thousands of voters of the minority community from the electoral rolls of that city
In 1995, it raised the Mathura and Kashi issues while simultaneously targeting corruption. The BJP's bitterest moment came when its government found itself almost totally isolated in the national political scene. It did everything possible to break that isolation, offered a very moderate programme in the President's address. Hindutva Commitment.
But, as its government was forced to submit its resignation, it went back on these pronouncements. In his speech in reply to the motion of confidence, even the moderate Vajpayee pointed out that the President's address was an enunciation of the BJP's policy in a situation when it formed a minority government. Otherwise, it continued to be committed to the full agenda of Hindutva, and that whenever it returned to power on its own, it will pursue that agenda.
The party decided to woo the regional parties once again ... The strategy was clear; every effort must be made to occupy the middle ground once occupied by the Congress. Once again, the pre-election mood of 1994 and 1995 came back.
It was as part of this strategy that the BJP went slow on Hindutva in the UP elections. Indeed, it adopted a policy of social engineering. The party gave more tickets to the OBCs.
But once again it failed (and) fell far short of majority. The BJP also failed to repeat the 1995 experiment when it had installed the BSP into power. Social engineering was strongly challenged and a section argued that if the selection of candidates had reflected the composition of the party's support base, that is, largely forward castes, then the results would have been more favourable.
The disappointments that the BJP suffered in UP. and Gujarat have renewed all the controversies. This tension was best reflected in Parliament on December 6 when the MPs of the party raised all the Hindutva-linkedslogans relating to Mathura, Kashi and Ayodhya, and the imperative of chanting Vande Mataram. One of the members, Ms. Uma Bharati, even pleaded that the demolition of the Babari Masjid be observed as a national holiday. Vajpayee, however absented himself on this occasion.
All the talk of moderation and of occupying the middle space just disappeared into thin air, and the thought of breaking the isolation which had cost the party its government at the Centre was also buried deep under the slogans.
Mohit Sen On State and Hindu Communalism
Parochialism, sectionalism and fragmentation are incompatible with democracy. The universality of democracy has over the decades of its existence been found to consist, above all, of civil liberties and the reduction of disparities.
The BJP has sinned against the universality of democracy and been punished for it most recent in Uttar Pradesh. The campaign for the Ram Janmabhoomi temple was said to be the building of a new nationalism. It was to be nationalism emerging from civil 'society and from the very soil of our country as opposed to what was said to be the state-sponsored so-called secular nationalism imposed from above by Nehru and his heirs.
In practice and in theory, however, this so-called new nationalism was based on disparity, on the denial of the equal right of all Indians. The Hindus who believed in the RSS version of Hindutva were obviously to be the new guardians of the temple of India, deciding on who should be admitted into the sanctum sanctorum.
This somewhat hidden denial of the universality of democracy led in Uttar Pradesh and will continue to lead there and elsewhere to democracy denying the BJP the ultimate prize of power. This denial cannot be done away with the verbal insistence that Hindutva is for all Indians and that the BJP is not all that different from the Congress. Such insistence only leads to the question being asked as to why in that case the original and actual Congress should not be preferred.
Either the BJP should renounce its presently proclaimed faith in the Parliamentary process and revert to winning through extra-constitutional means or it should attempt to become a party of conservative right- wing nationalism. The BJP should shed its communalism. Whether (it) will survive this mutation is a moot question but there is no other option for it.
Saeed Naqvi on BJP Formulating Survival Strategy
That the BJP minority Government remained in place at the Centre for 13 days but could not attract members from other parties is generally cited as evidence of the BJP's declining appeal.
The surface view would suggest that the BJP has receded. The panic which gripped all the UF parties soon after the general election has given way to a degree of relaxation. (Which) itself is a source of instability. The saffron threat is no longer the glue that keeps the UF together. But if the UF is together, and intends to be together, the rationale for this togetherness must be different. One reason is straightforward. The factor of power provides cohesion. But if power can be ensured even by juggling around with the cast, the altered scenario might not be unacceptable to the constituents, particularly if gains can be promised to individuals. The CPI (M) would be willing to support from the outside a Government of which even the Congress is a part. The recession of the BJP serves against the interests of those Congressmen who wish to get into power instantly.
The CPI(M) is an influential member of the UF steering committee and to that extent party to every action of the UF. Had the BJP loomed as large today as it did some months ago all this theorising on relations with the Congress, would have had a lower decibel level.
In the current political discussion there are two popular misperceptions. One, that a federal India has taken shape; and, two, that the BJP cannot arrest its decline. Neither is a federal India a confirmed reality nor is the BJP in irreversible decline. Both these situations are very much possible but complacency on both counts would be misplaced.
There is some validity in the impression that the parties that constitute the UF are regional forces. But the only truly regional party is the DMK a force in Tamil Nadu since the 1960s. Telugu Desam's credentials as an unshakable regional force are suspect. A Congress under Sitaram Kesri, which can attract the minorities and exploit the pro-Khamma image of Naidu's outfit, could stage a comeback.
In Karnataka, the Janata Dal is by definition a national party with a strong regional bias. To the extent that Laloo Prasad Yadav, the party president, has no say whatsoever in its affairs. Bangarappa has been re inducted into the party by Kesri. This one fact alone will make a material difference in the next elections.
Likewise, the CPI (M) is a national party with a strong base in West Bengal and Kerala and its primary contest in both the states is with the Congress.
What surfaces in bold relief, therefore, is a temporary unity between all these national and regional parties in the face of a perceived BJP threat. In the absence of this threat most of these parties are in conflict with the Congress in their respective states. This contradiction cannot be glossed over. It has to be resolved. And this resolution will be an evolutionary process.
Over a period of time there will have to be a clearer division between national and regional parties. Step by step, bargains will have to be struck.
It is for this coalition game plan that the BJP must prepare itself. It has a solid support-base which is not elastic. It will only become elastic if it sheds its anti- Muslim baggage and addresses itself to the civilizational unity within which various religions, cultures and languages thrive. The nosedive can be arrested. An altered and a refined BJP has a legitimate role. If so much of national politics is conducted vis-a-vis the BJP, who says the party is finished?
S. Rajagopalan
On BJP, 1996
For the BJP, the year 1996 has been one of missed opportunities and baffling paradoxes. Never before had it been haunted by the "so near, yet so far" syndrome. On both the occasions that it opted to have a crack at Government formation (first at the Centre and then in UP), the party's plans went awry.
Veritably, the peaks and the troughs have alternated to make 1996 a tantalising year for the BJP. Consider the paradox. At the popular level, it recorded impressive gains to emerge as the single largest party in a hung Parliament. Yet, in practical terms, all this proved to be of little avail when all the other major political parties shunned it like the plague. So much so, when the chips were down, the BJP had to make an ignominious exist after having been in office for an all-too-brief 13 days. That was in May 1996. By October, history repeated itself for the party in UP. This time round, its predicament was worse. Much to its chagrin, the Governor's invitation was not forthcoming despite its emergence as the single largest party. These reserves apart, the BJP also botched up its cards and lost Gujarat, a State which it had won by a landslide just the previous year. It miserably failed to keep its flock together.
To begin with, 1996 had commenced on a rather ominous note for the BJP. For no less a person than its president L.K. Advani, was among the top political leaders to be arraigned in the Jain hawala case. It was a time when the party was trying to put its best foot forward in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls ... The BJP all but lost a major campaign issue: corruption in high places.
More than the loss of one State, Gujarat dealt a body blow to the BJP's assiduously-cultivated image as "a party with a difference". To a certain extent, the Gujarat fallout was behind the BJP's failure to come close to the half-way mark in the Lok Sabha polls. Even though the overall tally was the party's best till date, it fell considerably short of expectations. An even more distressing aspect was that the Gujarat disease seemed to catch on .in other BJP strongholds like Rajasthan, MP and Delhi in varying degrees. Mercifully for the party, the developments did not go out of hand in these centres.
If the party's dream went sour after its failed experiment at Government formation at the Centre, the UP experience has been all the more bitter. Even as 1996 draws to a close, there is still no light at the end of the tunnel. Kanshi Ram's BSP (with just a third of the BJP's strength in the UP Assembly) is dictating terms to the later.
The unclear verdict once again exposed the BJP's Achilles' heel. That is, no other party willing for a tie-up with it. The one exception was the BSP after having burnt its bridges with the UF. Even that, too, on terms which the BJP would find hard to agree upon, given the deep dissatisfaction of its ranks in UP. On the national plane, from day one of the UF Government, the BJP held fast to the view that this "13-legged animal" would not live to see the end of 1996. But Mr. Deve Gowda proved all his detractors wrong.
On BJP Groping in the Dark
From "a party with a difference" to "a party with differences". That catchy, even if a trifle uncharitable, label has come to stick on the BJP's visage.
That Gujarat has done incalculable harm to the BJP's image on the national plane is something readily acknowledged by party leaders. In a sense, the BJP's failure to turn up trumps in the 1996 Lok Sabha polls is attributed in good measure to the Gujarat syndrome.
The BJP has kept up the old refrain by attributing the problem of indiscipline to the party's "sudden and rapid growth over the past decade". While the growth has undeniably been exponential, blaming the growth factor for the breakdown of discipline may not be fully valid.
The year 1997 is crucial to the BJP, not just because the party expects a mid-term poll "anytime" this year. Another dimension will be provided by the party's own presidential elections. Discipline, however, is not the BJP's only concern. Perhaps, a far more worrisome aspect is the party's isolation owing to the "political untouchaility" being practised by the other political parties. The latter have attributed this to the BJP's pursuit of what it regards as its 'distinctive agenda" with Hindutva as its linchpin. But a defiant BJP has sought to make it clear that it would not countenance any dilution of its Hindutva plank.
Speculation is rife over the Congress's withdrawal of support to the Deve Gowda Government.
The BJP's own gut feeling is that the Congress is only waiting for the moment when it is able to muster the numbers and get past the BJP. Knowing full well that the Congress will not waste a moment thereafter to strike, the BJP's efforts will be to somehow pre-empt Kesri and his camp-followers from cobbling together a new coalition at the Centre.
Thus, the twin developments (at the Centre and in UP) have brought home to the BJP's top brass the hard fact that unless it finds acceptability among other political parties, its prospects of making it to power (in New Delhi, anyway) would remain bleak. All said and done, there are limits to the BJP's growth. In the absence of an emotive issue like Ayodhya, it is still harder for the party. And, in any event, it by and large remains a party of the Hindi heartland ... There are vast patches in the East and the South, where the BJP is a marginal player at best. The message has not been lost on the BJP leadership, which in recent months has been working overtime in its bid to strike new friendships.
Roping in more allies in the southern and eastern States continues to be a daunting proposition IN other places; the BJP is clearly groping in the dark.
In the New Year, the BJP's problems may not be far different. The saffron party's main worry will continue to be how to win friends and influence people. Given its thin presence outside the Hindi heartland and the western States, forging tie-ups with regional parties may be the only way-out for the BJP to make a serious bid for power at the Centre.
National Press on CBI's Interrogation of JD President Laloo Prasad Yadav
Requiem for Laloo? Editorial, The Hindustan Times, 9 January, 1997
Today Bihar Chief Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav looks like a beaten man trying to present a brave front in the face of mounting evidence of his involvement in the multi-crore animal husbandry scam. Of course, the marathon questioning session that the Central Bureau of Investigation had with Mr. Yadav. With the decks cleared for charge-sheeting him, Mr. Yadav's hitherto unchallenged position as Bihar's strongman has more or less dissipated. With Mr. Narasimha Rao's example before him, Yadav may stay on until the actual charge-sheeting takes place.
Over the past year, Yadav's response to the massive fraud has varied from blustering confidence to pathetic buck passing. In all probability, the Bihar Chief Minister had told the CBI that officials over the past many years were responsible for the scam. His own role was to blow the lid off the scam. Unfortunately, there is palpable evidence of his involvement with the main scamsters and the accidental bonfire of incriminating documents long ago has given the game away. The posture of injured innocence ill-fits Yadav. Perhaps there is a lesson in it for political parvenus now strutting across the country as national leaders.
Passing the Buck Editorial, The Pioneer, 9 January, 1997
The moral compulsions on Yadav now to uphold the dignity of his office and resign, owning responsibility for grave administrative lapses, are rapidly growing. After all, the fraudulent fodder deals have virtually emptied the coffers of the exchequer and crippled the State.
Clearly, the Bihar Chief Minister's lack of political response to the mega-fraud has turned 'on its head his professed ideal of bringing about social justice. Yadav has sought to distance himself from the scam even though the evidence points at his direction. He has held the State Government officials solely responsible for the scandal. This is in disregard of the fact Mr. Yadav himself has admitted links with two of the prime suspects, the Janata Dal MLA- R.K. Rana, and the Animal Husbandry Department's chief in Ranchi, S.B. Sinha. The local guardian of (his) children studying in Ranchi. He accepted free air tickets from the beneficiaries of the scam money. Amazingly, despite these damaging revelations, the Chief Minister continues to try and pass the buck. Much of (his) bluster may well be motivated by a guilty conscience which vainly seeks to ward off fear-by making light of the investigations.
Laloo Gone Berserk Editorial, The Indian Express, 10 January, 1997
Bihar C.M. Yadav seems to have lost his sense of propriety, if ever he had one. His fulmination against CBI Joint Director Biswas was totally unwarranted and was not becoming of the high office he holds. Since it is not mandatory for an accused to have faith in the investigating agency, it is irrelevant whether Yadav reposes confidence in the CBI or not.
But to berate an officer and to accuse him of being a tool in the hands of an Opposition party just because he leads the investigation into the fodder scam is in bad taste. Realisation seems to have sunk into him that it is only a matter of time before he is put in the dock. True to form, Yadav has threatened to take the matter to the people's court little knowing there is nothing to be taken there.
Where is the conspiracy if, in the course of its investigation, the CBI thought it necessary to interrogate the Chief Minister? After all, the agency is in the business of collecting evidence and not condemning or punishing him. Of course, Biswas could have been a little more circumspect. He should have allowed his action to speak. The CBI would do well to realise that there is no need for inspired leaks and conjecturing.
In the good old days, the very thought of interrogation would have driven anyone to shame. But with a former Prime Minister undergoing the same experience, Yadav has some reason not to be ashamed. But his claim that he would continue to rule the State even if he is jailed is nothing but arrogance. It is for the court to pronounce him guilty or not but his continuance in the post once he is charged would surely be untenable. If he had any concern for norms and values, he would have quit the moment the CBI came to interrogate him. Yadav should realise that when it comes to adjudicating on financial malfeasance, the law is not bothered by the popularity an accused enjoys.
CBI as Whipping Boy Editorial, The Hindustan Times, 11 Jan., 1997
Bihar is a State where the weird is often the ordinary. Yadav has been living through a bad dream ever since the fodder scam came to surface. His hopeless predicament is that after the CBI's routine grilling, believed to be rather mild, he can't even draw comfort from the fact that it could have been much worse. In fact, the worst is still to come. Yadav seems to be a great exponent of the triumph of image over reality. Not the image that the media projects or the image that masses perceive of, but the one that he is hoping to build. There was a time when Yadav could do no wrong. Today he appears unable to do much right. If the Press is exposing his acts of misdemeanour, he vows to teach journalists a lesson. If the CBI is proceeding against him, it becomes a new villain. All this point to the beginning of his end.
Time and hope are running out. Yadav now threatens to take the fodder scandal to the "people's court". Yadav has resorted to a weird logic that after all the CBI hasn't made him the Chief Minister. 'If he feels that the CBI is trying to frame him, he can fight it out in the court. Why is he so wary of the courts? He had earlier dismissed the 'CAG indictment as an "afterthought" These are testing times for the "messiah of social justice". He is not only running short of time, he is running short of defence as well.
Admission to Guilt? Editorial, The Pioneer, 11 January, 1997
Bihar Chief Minister. Yadav has only succeeded in driving yet another nail in his own coffin by unleashing mobs on the streets of Patna Indeed, far from being a show of strength, the street violence has exposed his vulnerability. For, only the guilty or the insane would make the preposterous demand that the Central Bureau of Investigation appoint its investigating officers according to the whims and fancies of rampaging mobs. It is true that the concerned CBI official Biswas, has occasionally tended to get carried away by his zeal to nail the culprits behind the fodder scam.
As a matter of fact (Yadav) has over the past few days provided enough indications of his increasing nervousness about being found guilty. In his latest hysterical outburst, Yadav has declared that since the CBI did not appoint him as Chief Minister, he felt no need to resign even if he was formally charge sheeted. Unlike in the past. Yadav's bluster today sounds like the death rattle of a desperately afraid politician, One who not only feels the legal noose tightening round its neck but also who is fast running out of friends even in his own party.
The developments in Bihar will be watched by PM Deve Gowda, with much anxiety. It is quite possible that he may not be entirely unhappy at Yadav and his supporters indulging in lunatic statements and acts. After all, Deve Gowda would much rather have his eccentric colleague shoot himself in the head than take the dicey decision to sack the CM should he be charge sheeted. Indeed, not only the P.M. but all the constituents of the UF have a duty to restrain (Yadav) if they want the Government at the Centre to have any credibility at all For it would be a sad day for the country if political leaders are allowed to use a popular mandate as a shield to protect themselves against the law of the land.
Unease in the Dal Editorial, The Janata, 12 January, 1997
On the first day, when the news came that Laloo Prasad Yadav had been grilled for six hours by the CBI and the headlines shrieked that his being chargesheeted was imminent, many asked the question: How the Janata Dal - the leadership and the workers - should react to this event? The press reported that there was unease in the Dal but there were no reports of any reaction The next day at the Political Affairs Committee meeting this was not even raised. It is possible that the leadership and the workers were nonplussed, fearing that their worst fears about the person, who once looked like a saviour.
This sort of reaction, or, rather non-reaction, could not have helped the party. It would have only hastened the decline of its influence. But if they - the party and the workers - had reacted. It would have enhanced the prestige of the party and initiated a process which, as in the Congress, could have resulted in its consolidation.
But now the news has come that the workers of the Bihar unit of the JD have demonstrated their loyalty to Laloo Yadav by taking the latter's battle to the streets. This answer is even worse than the inaction out of fear. It only proves that the JD leaders and the workers are as good or bad as those of the other parties. One can only hope that the reaction of the Bihar unit is not representative and there are both leaders and workers who do not endorse it.
One cannot help saying that Laloo Yadav himself could have set a precedent by resigning the post, and in the process, helped himself as well as the party. But Laloo Yadav, who is a product of the JP movement, has failed to do so. And the Dal leaders have failed to react sensibly and have so far at least preferred to keep quiet ... In a situation like this, the only way the Dal can be strengthened is that the workers outside Bihar assert and build sufficient pressure so that Laloo Yadav would give up his post Such an initiative by the Dal workers will benefit the party as well as the country.
Workers can take heart from the fact that the Congress after removing P.V. Narasimha Rao has been able to attract the dissidents back into the fold and paved the way for it to emerge as the single largest party at the next elections.
There is enough in the thinking of the Janata Dal to permit a resurgence of its strength or recapturing its former glory. The social justice plank has not exhausted its potential and the Gandhian and Socialist traditions of its constituents give, in combination, a powerful philosophical base. Laloo Prasad Yadav giving up his post or the workers asserting themselves cannot just arrest the Dal's decline but set it on a course to future eminence.