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India: What happens after leftists' withdrawal?
The withdrawal of the Left from the ruling United Progressive Alliance in India has not come as a surprise. The left parties were mulling with the idea for the last several months, and had warned of the possibility of calling off their support if the government went ahead with the controversial nuclear deal with the United States.
Clearly, the government will not roll back on the accord, which it sees as a landmark achievement for India, and is determined to go through the formalities required to finalise it. However, the government was dragging its feet on the issue since it was also conscious of the critical support of the leftists, without whose backing it could not have formed the government more than four years ago.
Conscious of the complications that the withdrawal of this support may cause, the ruling UPA in the meantime has managed to garner the support of a regional political party in a bid to avert the likely crisis. Somewhat unfazed by the threat of the leftists, Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh discussed the nuclear issue with United States President George W. Bush in the G-8 summit in Japan, and this is seen by the communists as rubbing salt in their wounds.
Expectedly, they lost no time in announcing their decision to scrap the understanding with the UPA, which has been a minority government since the beginning of its tenure. Four left parties had extended their support without joining the rainbow coalition. The honeymoon is now undoubtedly over, and different speculations are making rounds in the Indian political circles about the shape of things to come.
The Indo-US civilian nuclear deal was first agreed in principle during President George Bush's visit to India in 2006, and it had drawn instant adverse reactions from the left and some other political even though the Congress-led UPA and many others saw it as a major achievement for energy-starved India.
Critics like the leftists say that the Manmohan Singh government is taking New Delhi unusually close to Washington, and is drifting away from India's much acclaimed non-aligned principles. They cited instances like the Indian vote against Iran in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Tehran's nuclear dispute with the United States, and the Indo-US arms agreement as evidence of UPA government's too close ties with the United States.
Obviously, the government sought to brush aside such criticisms as "irrational," but the critics kept the pot boiling on this matter. The cordial UPA-leftist relations suffered a major setback centering the issue, and the support of the 59 members of the communists was since hanging in the balance. This situation moved inexorably in the negative direction and finally the calling-off of the support has taken place, sparking off possibilities of early elections in India.
The deal faces no major bottlenecks on the American side, although it is not above criticism there since the Bush administration is seen by several quarters as going out of the way in extending the civilian nuclear facilities to India. The accord is not exactly in consonance with the laws of the United States since New Delhi has not signed the atomic non-proliferation treaty. This condition notwithstanding, the Bush administration is keen to take the deal through the Congress for necessary legislation, the possibility of which looks bright.
But time is a factor for the administration, as it points out to New Delhi that the clock is ticking and India must act swiftly on the fate of the accord. Caught is a difficult situation, the Indian government was understood to be buying time, but it must move to the IAEA for certain formalities to make the accord operational.
Warily watching the developments, the left parties set a timeframe for the government to make its stand clear on the issue, which is instead going ahead with the deal, much to the dismay of the critics. The inevitable has happened, with the leftists withdrawing support to the multi-party government.
The development centering the nuclear deal in India has come as a logical corollary to the raging rifts between the government and their supporters. Evidently, the UPA alliance has weighed all pros and cons before taking fresh initiative to take the deal towards implementation. It seems that it feels that the accord is widely hailed in India and, hence, it could reap electoral benefits should the country go for early polls because of the collapse of the government following withdrawal of the leftist support.
Besides, it may also feel that the government's loss cannot be severe since the next elections are not too far away, and the UPA has already enjoyed the benefits of remaining in power with left support for more that four of the five-year term. In a politically strategic move, the ruling UPA has, in the meantime, succeeded in securing the support of 39 parliament members of the regional Samajwadi Party (SP) of the large Uttar Pradesh state, and this may ensure the survival of the government in the event of the absence of left support.
The SP believes in secular policies as much as the UPA does, and this common ground may allow the two sides to forge a greater electoral alliance in the future. The SP of Mulayam Singh Yadav feels that it would be benefited politically by the decision. The leftists had also extended support to the UPA broadly on the same grounds since they wanted to prevent the former ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) from coming to power again, as the alliance is seen as communal.
Understandably, the leftists are opposed tooth-and-nail to the nuclear deal with the United States for ideological reasons. CPI(M) heavyweight Prakash Karat considers the deal as a betrayal of India's independent foreign policy. External affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee insists that the critics have failed to fathom the usefulness of the deal for India.
The government was dithering on the issue because of the complexities, but appeared to have taken a firm stand in its favour, despite left sensitivities, after UPA and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi expressed herself fully behind the accord, regardless of what may follow after the withdrawal of the communist's.
The Indian government is unlikely to collapse in spite of the instability, which it very much anticipated. The development has made all political forces sit up and, needless to say, they are all now getting ready for the general elections that are due on May, 2009. It is possible that the polls will be advanced by several months, and the government may try to cash in on the successful implementation of the deal, which, however, is still a long way from seeing the light of the day.
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