CAFE
COM:PORT
CHAT JOCKEYS
EVENTS

The Vote of Confidence

Sarpotdar is now relaying the BJP ideology. And asking whether this whole conception, that the BJP alone is anti-secular, pro-Hindu, is right? He wants to know what the secular Congress has done for the minorities in all the years that it held power.

Taking off on the criticism against Bal Thackeray and his famous "remote control", Sarpotdar demands: What is the Congress doing now? What is the Congress attempting but remote control, when it attempts to blackmail the UF government? Is it not remote control for one party to say that its support is conditional on the UF choosing a Prime Minister acceptable to the Congress?

Sarpotdar now on diatribe-mode. Talks of how politics should be principled, that it should be for the good of the nation, that it should show concern for the poor and the oppressed, and so forth...

Sarpotdar, continuing despite the Speaker's request that he cheese it, is now on the question of what this UF exercise has done. "It has shown the nation just how incompetent the UF coalition is, and how unprincipled the Congress is," says the MP from Mumbai.

From the UF benches someone wants to know if Sarpotdar is in support, or opposition, to the motion. To which the MP responds that he began by saying he is against the motion, and the government. And says that he has one request to all Parliamentarians, don't ever indulge in such unprincipled exercises again, or try to form a government when the numbers are not on your side.

Deve Gowda seems quite amused by Sarpotdar's eloquence. Anyway, the Mumbai MP has now sat down, yielding place to the fiery Ram Vilas Paswan.

Paswan starting on an emotional note, saying how people like him and Gowda, born in the huts of Indian villages, had never dreamt of ever becoming village headman, leave alone hold the top offices they have held for the last ten months.

Paswan talks of how this government is being brought down by unprincipled individuals, that this shame on the national conscience is being telecast worldwide, and that India is in consequence forced to bow its head in shame. A closet cricket fan, Paswan borrows from the game's lingo:" A reporter asked me how long this government will last. In cricket there are one day games, and five day games. I don't know which game the Congress is playing. As far as we are concerned, we are trying to score runs, we are not bothered about how long our wickets last."

Now he talks of how each time a non-Congress government has taken office, the Congress has ensured that the nation was forced to go to the polls well before the full term of office. "I want to say this, the job is to strengthen democracy, not to weaken it. That is what we in the UF have tried to do, that is not what the Congress is doing."

Criticising the Congress objection to Deve Gowda, Paswan says that it is in keeping with the personality cult the Congress believes in. Argues that the Congress has never thought of policies and practises, only of individuals - both when it is in power, and when it is in opposition.

Paswan: "Power is like a sword - you can use it to cut your opponent's throat, but you can also cut your own throat with it, and that is why we are never for power alone, we know how dangerous such thinking can be."

Paswan: "What sort of politics is this, where when you feel like, you change the government, when you feel like you change the Prime Minister."

Paswan: "My point is simply this -- whether it is the Congress or the BJP or whoever, they had every right to come to us with policies, with ideas, with programmes for the good of the people. But all the Congress has done is come with one demand: Change the prime minister. And it has initiated the demand at the time when that PM was in Moscow -- couldn't they even wait till Deve Gowda returned from that trip? What precisely was the urgency that called for that letter at that point in time?"

The UF government can take pride, says Paswan, that it has performed without fear or favour. If the CBI initiated action against Congress politicians, then it has also taken action against my own leader, Laloo Prasad Yadav. We were in government, but we didn't try to block that, we didn't try to shackle the functioning of the CBI. The government has, in its brief tenure, been not only clean, but open, and impartial.

Paswan: "From the very first day, the UF has said that it is united under Deve Gowda, so what right did the Congress now have to suddenly decide who should lead us? Will the Congress take it quietly if we decide who the Congress president should be? Will it not consider that an interference in its own affairs? What sort of world is this, where no one can interfere with the Congress, but the Congress can interfere with everyone else?"

"Under Deve Gowda, our country has progressed, both in India and abroad. We have had no communal riots, we have had success on the political front, we have had economic success, we have put forward a Budget that has been hailed across the world, and all this we have done under Deve Gowda. Now the Congress should tell us why they are asking for that same Deve Gowda to be thrown out."

Paswan: "There is a saying that a drunk needs an excuse to drink. Similarly, I tell the Congress, if you need an excuse to put the nation to the trouble and expense of another election, then we can't stop you."

Paswan is now on the question of why we are spending so much money to arm ourselves against Pakistan, and vice versa. Why this expense, when there are more urgent concerns? Why, when Europe with its varied cultures can unite, can India and Pakistan not come together in peace? The tenor of the argument being, tnhis was what the UF government was attempting, this was why talks were initiated with the Pak government, why then did the Congress pull the rug out from under the government?

Paswan, as per usual, mixes folk wisdom in his speeches, now telling the Congress this: "Talking of revolution is one thing; but jumping from the top floor of a skyscraper is not revolution, it is suicide." A reference, here to the Congress party's apparent determination to send the nation to the polls again.

Paswan seems to be winding down now... says that it is up to the MPs here to think of what they want from this House? More instability, or do they want to work together for the good of the nation? Do they want to consider personal interests of ambitious politicians, or the national interest?

Paswan's close: "Please remember, when you contest you do so for yourself and for the party, but when you sit here, you do so as a representative of an entire nation, not of any one individual or nation. Therefore it is your duty to think not of yourself or your party, but of the nation." Paswan ends his speech to, surprisingly enough, applause from the BJP benches. And it is now Pramod Mahajan, in a shiny cream silk kurta, getting up to speak next.

Mahajan's first point: "This is a very peculiar debate. The coalition party that is asking for a vote of confidence has no confidence in itself or its allies, so where lies the sense of asking for a vote of confidence from the rest of us? The Prime Minister spoke for half an hour, but at no point did he say, even in passing, why he was asking us to have confidence in his government, not even for formality did he say at the end of the speech that we should repose confidence in him."

Mahajan: "Why did Deve Gowda not ask for our confidence? Because he is aware that it is not happening here, his fate is not being decided in this House, but elsewhere in the councils of various political parties. So Gowda got up, spoke about CMs councils and other councils and sat down again, without asking us to repose confidence in him. Mind you, he spoke of all those councils, without ever once speaking of his own steering committee."

Mahajan: "YOu attack the BJP for supporting BSP in UP. Well, we started out, first up we said, let us put a government in place, let us review after six months. Now you criticise this. Tell me, when you in the Congress supported Deve Gowda, did you say that it was for nine months and that you would review? Did you not say it was for five full years? Why then without any warning have you now withdrawn support? And with what face do you criticise the BJP for putting a government in place in UP?"

Mahajan: "The Congress talks of how it has fought the BJP across the country. My question is, who is the Congress fighting in Kerala? In Tamil Nadu? In AP? In Rajasthan? In Tripura? In Bengal? The Congress is fighting - but not the BJP... their enemies there are the Communists, the constituents of the UF."

Mahajan: "You criticise only Deve Gowda. Then that means that the other ministers of the UF are good? If that is the case, why in your letter have you made a blanket charge of bad government?"

Mahajan> "In the letter withdrawing support, the Congress says, 'In elections in UP, the UF did not work with the Congress to contain the forces of political communalism'. Arre, what does the President, to whom this letter is addressed, have to do with assembly elections in UP?"

Mahajan: "I notice people talking of the BJP's communalism, today. Why? Ten months back, you spoke of this, you defeated the BJP government on this floor. So why are you talking of us now? We are who we are, it is the UF government that is now facing a vote of confidence, so why is the focus of everyone's attacks the BJP? What have we to do with all this? Nine months back we on this floor said we did not support the UF government, we haven't changed our stance since then. Nine months back, the Congress said they are supporting this government for the full term - nine months later, the Congress has gone back on its solemn promise on the floor of this House. And still they get up and who do they talk about? The BJP!"

This is, perhaps, the most fiery performance of the day thus far - Mahajan employing the debater's favourite weapons of sarcasm, innuendo, and outright scathing attacks to blast the Congress. And, in Mark Antony style, he keeps up the chorus of "I am not blaming the Congress, they are honourable men".

Mahajan: "To taint the BJP, they say that we are communal as proved by the events of December 6, 1992. Does this mean that you will give us a certificate saying we were secular before that date? Why is it that whenever there is a crisis in Parliament, the debate, irrespective of what caused the crisis, revolves around the question of the BJP being communal? Why are we the whipping boys of Indian politics?"

Mahajan: "I must congratulate Deve Gowda, he ran the government for nine months with Congress support - neither Charan Singh, with Indira Gandhi's support, or Chandra Shekhar, with Rajiv Gandhi's support, managed that much. The Congress has this history of offering "unconditional support for five years" and withdrawing it after a few months."

Interestingly, P Chidambaram just walked up to the Speaker's table to pass him a note. At this time, it could possibly be that the UF has decided on some speaker other than the ones originally listed, to rebut Mahajan. Oh well, we will know soon enough.

Mahajan: "I was trying to explain this government to a friend from abroad. I pointed to myself and said, I belong to the single largest party in Parliament, and I am in the Opposition. Then I pointed to a Congress friend, and said, he belongs to the second largest party in Parliament, and he is supporting the government from outside. Then I pointed to M A Baby, and said, he is in the third largest party, and is with the government but not in it. Then I pointed to Ramakant Khalap of the MGP and said, he is the only member of his party in the House, and he is the government."

Mahajan concludes, by promising that when this government falls, the people willh return the BJP to Parliament with such a huge mandate that all the other parties, gathering together, cannot stop us from forming a stable government.

Shivraj Patil, former Speaker, rising to support the motion.

Shivraj Patil, the former speaker, is now addressing the House. Kesri's choice of speakers to represent the Congress is interesting. Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi first, now Patil. Not the kind of speakers who set the Yamuna on fire.

Patil talking about how this government has been forced to seek a vote of confidence, nine months after having received one. He says it is ironic that no one has moved a motion of no-confidence, what is happening is that against all the norms, the government is being forced to suspend its business and keep running to the House seeking its confidence.

Tell you what, if the UF government wanted someone to speak for its life, Shivraj Patil should have been pretty much bottom-of-barrel choice. Thus far, his speech has not touched on any of the points raised in the debate, preferring instead to talk of how India is in the era of coalition politics, and that it is time the various political parties sat down together and found a solution to such frequent instability. True enough, but hardly the issue here. And now Patil talks about how the Presidential form of government is an option that should be explored... but as the saying goes, what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?

Patil says that maybe, the English model should be tried. Where the PM is not removed by passing a vote of no confidence in him or her, but by passing a vote of confidence in someone else. His argument being that when that is done, the House is indicating that this person, who enjoys its confidence, should be the next head of state, and that this in turn ensures stability.

Patil assuring the HOuse, now, that there is no problem, irrespective of the result of today's vote, in passing the Budget - which appears to indicate that the Congress will support the budget, come what may.

Patil finally ends, having formally opposed the motion of confidence.

And now it is P Chidambaram rising in support of the motion.

Chidambaram: "Nine months back, when I rose to support a similar motion, it was with a sense of confidence, of hope, and of pride - that this august house had correctly interpreted the mandate of the HOuse. Today, I rise to support the motion, with a sense of sadness."

P Chidambaram talks about how complex this business of governing such a vast and varied country is.

If Mahajan is into sarcasm and Paswan into folk wisdom, P Chidambaram is into projecting the sane, sensible, calm, collected image... and relies on word play on the lines of "When this country attained Independence, the then leaders managed to make India a whole country, rather than a country full of holes".

"In May 1966 the Congress lost its moral authority to form the government. It has happened before - it happened to Rajiv Gandhi and he accepted it, it happened earlier to Indira Gandhi and she accepted it." Easy to guess where PC is going - his point is, nine months later, there is still no moral authority for the Congress to stake a claim to form the government, which is what it has done via its letter.

PC now rebutting criticism of regional parties, arguing that the regional leaders are closer to the people than the national party leaders are.

Now we are onto the need for secularism - which, funnily enough, is a bogey raised each time there is a vote of confidence, no matter who is raising it, but rarely mentioned at any other time in the life of successive parliaments.

PC now moving on to the need for pluralism in government - he says India is too vast to be ruled from Delhi alone. "India can be better governed, as we have demostrated, by devolving power to the states.%2

PC: "The Deve Gowda government was the first in Indian history to realise that the chief ministers of various states had a responsibility not only to rule their various states, but also to help in the governance of the country."

Pointing out that for the first time, the DEve Gowda government took the step of devolving 29 per cent of its annual income to the States, PC says, "It is this government that is now in danger. IO am not in a position to say why it happened, I am not in a position to say why it happened on an Easter Sunday when the country was in a celebratory mood, I cannot say why it happened when the Prime Minister was earning laurels for the country in Moscow.... I can only say that this country, and all of us in this HOuse, have been in a sense of uncertainity for the last ten days."

Did the people deserve this, asks PC? Did they want or need this? As I ponder these questions, there is in me a terrible sadness...

PC in his gentle fashion now attacks the Congress; "The Congress says that the PM marginalised the Congress. How can the PM do so when the UF hasn't done so? And the proof that the UF hasn't done so lies in the fact that the Congress is prepared to support the UF, without Gowda. In Tamil, there is a proverb which asks, is the container supporting the ghee, or the ghee supporting the container?"

Santosh Mohan Deb interrupts PC to point out that the Congress had changed its mind, and indicated its intentions, and after that none of the UF leaders have bothered to talk to them about trying to achieve a consensus. And now it is back to PC...

PC winding down... "All I say is, this government has been in office for ten months, this govt has moved a vote of confidnece. If each of the three groups sticks to its decision, we know the verdict, and it is not one that makes anyone happy or unhappy, but this government cannot be voted out because it has committed any grave mistake, this govt will have its place in history, this govt has left its imprint on the political and economic map of India...."