CONGRESS IN DISSARAY

For a government that has been formed on a waifer thin margin and some alliances of convenience, the UPA has had a good run so far in its second tenure. But inevitably as we have seen in the past, the Prime Minister’s long foreign trips often throw up local fracases. His healing type of no comment while available, very often douses flames even before they become local conflagrations.
Digvijay’s comments from America, while on a personal visit, about Chidambaram’s anti-Maoist policy was one such. It showed the Congress ranks in disarray just a day before, and even during Parliament’s discussion on the Dantewada massacre. Because the two leaders are immensely senior and powerful, Delhi’s political pundits began to read subliminal messages and made multiple interpretations. Some of that, the party hopes will die down after the Parliamentary discussion on it. As if that is not enough to create nervousness in the Centre we also have a whole clutch of Union Ministers who have run out of their Rajya Sabha terms. They are of course hardworking and many are Ministers who deliver, so they have little reason to worry. Since all of them were also too nervous to attempt a Lok Sabha outing they are now dependent on the Congress high command. The constitutional point on whether they can survive as Ministers on expired Rajya Sabha seats is not yet tested. So, Ministry work proceeds nervously at best, while mantris keep a tentative hand on their kursis while signing files with the other. Some are even doing cross country official trips to woo states which may have spare Rajya Sabha capacities but whose Chief Ministers are nervous about accommodating outsiders. But all of this surely makes for a government that is nervous.