Commentary/Saisuresh Sivaswamy

Bofors will lead to UF-Congress split

Vinashkale vipridh buddhi. Translated roughly, it means that things go wrong when Nemesis is near. And that ancient saw just about sums up the state the United Front government, in particular Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda, finds himself in.

Of course, it was no one's case when the Congress offered to support the United Front government from the outside, that the misalliance would last the entire stretch of five years, never mind the declarations to the contrary made by worthies on both sides of the fence. While we are here, also notice the increasing frequency with which such statements are not being made by functionaries of the Congress party anymore?

At first it seemed that the Congress government merely wanted someone in Delhi to take the unpleasant decisions that it knew from years of misgovernance were inevitable -- like the steep hike in petroleum prices last year of proceeding against bigwigs of the former ruling party. And perhaps even former prime minister P V Narasimha Rao was deluded by such thoughts. But as the UF government made it clear that it had a mind of its own, which it would not hesitate to use unmindful of the consequences to the Congress's electoral fortunes, the honeymoon ended faster than Michael Jackson's.

Which is as it was to be. For the alliance between the two sides was necessarily a political gambit, and was bereft of any ideological mooring bar that to keep the Bharatiya Janata Party out of power. One could just imagine that the brains trust from both sides patting themselves on the back after a marathon meeting: just two years, and the BJP phenomenon will be over, must have gone their argument. And subsequent events almost proved them right. The non-result in Uttar Pradesh, the loss of Gujarat ... who knows, had Rajasthan too succumbed, the BJP would have well and truly been written off.

Naturally, there has to be more to a relationship than a common desire to keep a mutual enemy out. My enemy's may be my friend, but that holds true only if all of us are not fighting for the same prize. Given that the three protagonists are all aiming for New Delhi, the bond between the Congress and the UF does not need much pressure before it gives way.

To make things easier, just look at this way: in the previous elections the Congress fought against constituents of the UF in Uttar Pradesh and elsewhere in the country. In the next elections, which will take place well before the turn of the millennium will they not fight against each other? And when they do, how will they explain the fact that they were sticking together the last few years?

Everything else that the UF government has done so far which the Congress has described as irritants in the relationship -- right from talking about another hike in petrol products' price to the prime minister not attending the Congress president's iftaar -- pale into insignificance when one considers the atom bomb that the Bofors names will prove to be. Already alarm bells must be going off like crazy in the Congress headquarters, now that the explosive documents are in the country and have already been submitted to an equally explosive judge.

The Bofors documents offer the two sides entirely different perspectives. For the United Front government, the stakes are terribly high. The kickbacks scam was pitchforked into an election issue by the previous avtaar of the Opposition alliance the last time round, and the brains behind it -- -in particular former prime minister V P Singh -- remains the current alliance's presiding deity, and there is no way he is going to stand for anything less than full disclosure of the names by the UF government.

Apart from this, the UF government is a conglomeration of parties that are intrinsically opposed to the Congress party, and dictates of realpolitik demand that they make the most of the ammunition that fate has thrust into their hands. Can they afford to let the Congress party slip off the hook -- on the answer to this question rotates their political survival.

For getting the names is not the end of the matter -- and this was anyway achieved more with judicial intervention than administrative will. What needs to follow is governmental action, and the UF cannot be seen to be pussyfooting on this front.

The Congress party, of course, would like nothing better than this. For it is indeed obvious that the money from the scam went towards the party's election needs. One could dressy that this was a continuing practice, only this time with Bofors the truth has stumbled out.

And before we proceed, let us get one thing clear. There is nothing particularly Indian about this practice. Throughout the world, ruling parties have made money on multi-dollar contracts with foreign firms. And, on a lower scale, as one comes down to the state, city, panchayat level, politicians in India and elsewhere have always oiled their election machinery from the grease that is applied to their palms.

But for the Congress party, the stakes are higher than they are for any other party, simply because of the historical baggage it has been carrying. For a party of the Mahatma and Nehru being seen with its hand in the till is inconceivable in a nation full of hypocrites busy as they are offering a little lucre for getting a driving licence, their passport done, or getting a telephone line quick. The Congress needs to ensure that the entire facts surrounding the Bofors scandal do not surface, and the longer the UF, or any other government is in office this cannot be done.

What is holding its hand is that even if a general election was called in the next few months there is no guarantee that the Congress will be returned to power; there is no indication of any revival of support for the party in regions like the Hindi belt where the BJP and the dalit phenomena have worsted it like never before.