O J’s Corner

Panic reactions for electoral gains

The political landscape is reverberating with the cacophony of various outfits supporting this view or that to put pressure on their respective fronts to concede larger space for them in the ensuing Lok Sabha elections. In the States going to the Assembly polls later this year, the trend is not different.

Mayawati has withdrawn the BSP support to the UPA regime, when she got scent of the broth cooking in the political cauldron that the UPA may enlist the support of Mulayam Singh Yadav for sustaining the Dr Manmohan Singh Government, if the Left parties withdraw their outside support. She has done this after the UPA Government facilitated the go-slow process in the Taj Corridor case against her. And Mayawati is confident of her becoming the Prime Minister one day.

Whatever may be the stiff posture of the CPM on the nuclear deal issue, politburo member Sitaram Yechuri was not haunted by the Stalin era phantom of a mindblock to call on External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee to know the latest as the Congress Ministers held a conclave with the Prime Minister after the debacle of Congress-Left parleys. The CPM is also overanxious to avert the fall of the UPA Government. No doubt, the Left parties will not have the luxury of as many number of MPs in the Lok Sabha in the next Parliament as it has now. For their gains, it wants the Congress to toe its line. After it gave the go-ahead to the Monmohan Singh team to go ahead with the mandatory discussions with the International Atomic Energy Agency, CPM’s rigidity now remains inexplicable. Its argument that once an agreement is signed with the IAEA, India is bound by the terms internationally seems ludicrous. It should have known that things would lead to this pass, if discussions were held with IAEA. Well, the CPM has political grounds to cling on, and it is well within its rights to pursue its line.

Sensing that Lok Sabha elections are around the corner, small parties in the Congress-led UDF are speaking out different things at high decibels to cause a pinprick so that these splinter groups are not left unattended to. K.R.Gowri, M V Raghavan, some of the IUML leaders and the like have already spoken against the stance of the Congress Party on certain issues like the text-book controversy, or the selfishness of the party. K M Mani would not speak against the Congress, but wants high reckoning in seat allotment.

This time, the seat allocation would be a little more tough, it appears. For, the UDF thinks that the chances of victory are bright.