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THE NATION:
CONGRESS
Left
Turn
Under
Sonia, the Congress is shedding its image as a supporter of economic reforms
By
Lakshmi Iyer
On
July 14, 2000, at the inaugural meeting of the Congress' introspection
workshop on economic policy, former Union minister Arjun Singh was reproachful.
"I am being made a villain (of forcing a review of reforms). I am
not anti-reform. I am for reforms. India cannot afford to be isolated,"
he assured the eclectic group set up to formulate an economic policy distinguishable
from the one pursued by the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
 Four
months later, the mood in the party is such that Singh may no longer have
to be apologetic about raising doubts over the desirability of reforms.
Even as the policy workshop is working fitfully at its task, the organisation
has already accepted his agenda. And the policy shift has been heralded
by none other than Congress President Sonia Gandhi herself. The winter
session of Parliament opened last week with Sonia moving an adjournment
motion seeking to censure the Government for the crisis in agriculture
as a result of fulfilment of World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreements.
It was the
first censure motion moved by Sonia in her year-old career as leader of
the Opposition. Also, for the first time, in total contravention of Lok
Sabha convention, her aides even circulated copies of the unminuted text
of her speech. The Congress motion was defeated by 248 votes to 139, but
it helped the party shed the image of being an unequivocal supporter of
economic reforms. More importantly, it helped the party outgrow the perception
that it was just a "B" team of the ruling BJP. Even early this
year, the signals from the party were confusing-hours after he joined
Sonia in petitioning the prime minister to roll back the subsidy cut,
former finance minister Manmohan Singh confused his partymen and gladdened
the hearts of the ruling alliance by demanding that subsidies be brought
down within the limits of prudence.
Does one
parliamentary device in isolation indicate a major policy shift? Was the
Congress turning left? "There is no left turn. We are articulating
the same things in a different manner. The Congress is reverting to an
idiom it is familiar with," says Lok Sabha member Mani Shankar Aiyar.
The bureaucrat-turned-politician has been leading the pack in the party
for a near-return to Nehruvian socialism. He was also a member of the
A.K. Antony-led introspection committee on the electoral debacle that
had identified reforms as a millstone around the party's neck.
In its pursuit
for vote-bank value addition to economic reforms, the Congress has already
begun focusing on social sector spending. Soon after her re-election as
party president a fortnight ago, Sonia convened a meeting of eight Congress
chief ministers to review performance of the state governments in tackling
poverty and in dealing with problems of minorities. In the process, the
state bosses even got a few useful tips. General Secretary Ghulam Nabi
Azad warned about the undesirability of launching too many schemes for
the minorities as they would upset Hindus. Manmohan warned the chief ministers
of a resource crunch citing the 27 per cent cut in Maharashtra's education
budget this year.
It's
Not a U-Turn: Aiyar cautions that the party has not turned its back
on reforms. "There is a nuancing of our position on reforms. Manmohan
is an integral part of the Congress," he says. The Mayiladuthurai
MP is not off the mark. The new economic policy paper to be unveiled on
November 30 commits the party to "deepening, expanding and strengthening
economic reforms". It has vetoed populist measures like free power
and called for rationalising subsidies. "We cannot afford to be an
economic island. In the overall strategy of liberalisation and globalisation,
we are trying see that there is correct policy sequencing and correct
timing," points out pro-reforms Prithviraj Chavan, convenor of the
AICC's department for policy, planning and coordination. He says that
the party was merely focusing on the bungling by the Government on the
food security front and the manner in which it was going ahead with disinvestment.
A shift
in the Congress position on economic reforms would, of course, have repercussions
for the ruling NDA Government. "It won't be so easy as in the past
when we helped them, for instance, on the Insurance Bill. We were so committed
to it, we ended up almost like their 'B' team," says Aiyar. Which
means the Government would no longer be able to rely on the support of
the Congress to push through the moves to denationalise banks and ensure
passage of non-financial legislation like the Fiscal Responsibility Bill,
Competition Bill, Bankruptcy Bill, Convergence Bill and Constituency Delimitation
Bill in the current session. However, senior leader Pranab Mukherjee,
who also heads the introspection workshop, is keen that the Congress clear
two WTO-related bills-the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers' Rights
Bill and Patents' Bill in the current session.
As for the
bank denationalisation move, it has already become an emotive issue in
the Congress. Even to a reforms protagonist like Manmohan, the acceptable
level of equity dilution is 49 per cent, a benchmark that he himself set
by amending the Banking Regulation Act in 1993. Congressmen need no other
reason to oppose it than the fact that it was Indira Gandhi who in the
first place had nationalised banks more than three decades ago.
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