Manmohan has outlived his utility for Sonia Gandhi

By BV Rao Whoever said a week is a long time in politics didn’t obviously account for the UPA government’s propensity for harakiri with three full days to spare. From 1 June, when it seemed to have adequately propitiated the Baba to conduct a choreographed agitation, to the night of 4 June, when it cracked down on his peaceful supporters, it was one rapid slide in fortunes for Sonia’s Congress and Manmohan’s government. I say Sonia’s Congress and Manmohan’s government with deliberation. There can be many angles and multiple analyses of the events of the past four days. We are all likely to debate if yoga gurus should be leading civil protests or if Baba Ramdev has political ambitions or if the RSS is propping him. We could ask ourselves if his demands are stupid or if such protests are a threat to the constitutional structures of lawmaking we have given unto ourselves. But the one simple message from last week is that Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh are drifting apart. And that distance seems to be increasing by the day. [caption id=“attachment_21030” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“During UPA’s first term, when scandals were in the works but did not break out, their’s was a cozy relationship. AFP”] [/caption] The drift has its origins not in the divergence of views on how to handle the corruption campaigns sweeping the country — both seem equally clueless — but from the sameness of purpose. Neither wants to carry the corruption can and both want to be seen as wearing the whiter fabric. During UPA’s first term, when scandals were in the works but did not break out, their’s was a cozy relationship. Sonia, the puppeteer, and Manmohan the puppet made for a pretty show. He rarely missed a twitch of the string. In return, she indulged him even when he put her government at risk over the nuclear deal which, it now seems, delivered nothing to anybody except to initiate the process for the transmogrification of a puppet into a Prime Minister. When Suresh Kalmadi and Andimuthu Raja were actively plotting their billion buck kills, Manmohan had no option but to look away or shut his eyes. But by the time the big sins of his first term started tumbling out early in his second, he was a different puppet, a puppet with a mind of his own and a fetish for his good, clean looks. And therein lay the rub. While the decision to let the DMK and Kalmadi run amuck was a political one, it became the government’s problem once the muck hit the ceiling. Throughout the controversy over the demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to probe the 2G scam, the Congress leadership resisted it while Manmohan’s image was taking a beating. It seemed like he was ducking the JPC because he had something to hide. That led to Manmohan’s first open defiance of Sonia Gandhi under UPA-2. At the Congress’ plenary meeting, right under Sonia’s nose, Manmohan shocked the party by announcing that he would submit himself to questioning by Murli Manohar Joshi’s Public Accounts Committee. The text of his written speech was circulated to Sonia and the top delegates, and the media made no mention of this announcement. Later Pranab Mukherjee would admit that Manmohan had taken the party by surprise. Manmohan was sending a signal to Sonia and his party: somebody else, not he, was afraid of the JPC and he would not be the fall guy before the public. Just so that this message was not lost within party forums, Manmohan announced a tete-a-tete with editors of news channels  — once again without consulting the party — where he again made it clear that he was not the one who was stalling a JPC probe (which was conceded by then) and that he behaved like the blind king Dhritrashtra because of “coalition compulsions” forced on him by his party. That was on 16 February. Sixteen weeks and many disclosures of inaction and half-action later, Manmohan has come out as clean as a white kurta in a pigsty. Worse, he is now seen as a helpless Prime Minister, a weak administrator who can do little else than cling to his chair. Hence the second rush of blood. Manmohan now wanted to show that he is a big boy in the playground of political administration and he can handle things all on his own, thank you, Sonia_ji_. His trip was to now show that he can be decisive and if that needs him to be scheming and manipulative, so be it. That is why he sent four top ministers and his cabinet secretary to the airport to receive Baba Ramdev. Contrast that with the visit of his best friend President Bush, who was received by just the minister-in-waiting, and you know Manmohan was scheming to pump the Baba’s ego and have him agree to stuff that would finish both his campaign as well as knock the bottom out of Anna Hazare’s. With that one single stroke of (self-acclaimed) genius, he created suspicions that Ramdev was being propped up by the government. He then tricked the Baba into signing a letter with which he could hold him to ransom to call off the fast at a time convenient to the government. When the Baba refused, the heartless midnight eviction of women, children and the elderly followed. The Congress party didn’t figure anywhere in all this, except to call a meeting of the AICC for the mopping up operation the day after the raid. It is Manmohan Singh’s decision, not a party decision. What happened at Ramlila grounds was unfortunate and avoidable, tweeted Anil Shastri, editor of the party’s mouthpiece, Sandesh, though Kapil Sibal said the party was fully behind the midnight action. In any event, Manmohan’s attempted decisiveness blew up badly in his face and the party’s. The condemnation of the eviction of peaceful protesters has been widespread. Support for the Baba has now grown beyond his limited black money campaign. Manmohan set out to expose the hidden agenda of the RSS and BJP behind the Baba’s campaign, but he has only succeeded in making both of them see light at the end of tunnel. He set out to drive a wedge between the various civil society groups that were tormenting him. He has given them all a new sense of purpose. He set out to prove that he has zero tolerance for corruption, and has ended up showing that he will do anything to keep the black money in the Swiss banks. He said civil society was destroying democratic structures and stifled democratic dissent. Above all, he set out to prove he was above everyday politics and that he was not the average politician. But he has ended up being just one of them. That’s where his new problem might begin. A learned economist with only GDP on his mind was a perfect foil for Sonia. A politician with ambition is the last thing she wants there. If for nothing else, Baba Ramdev’s agitation might be remembered  for highlighting this one fact: Manmohan overreached himself, he has outlived his usefulness for Sonia. The question is: how long will he retain his chair, now that Madam’s interests and his own are divergent? BV Rao is a senior journalist and currently edits Governance Now