In the end UPA chairperson and Congress president Sonia Gandhi won the battle hands down. She not only got the most expensive and mother of all populist schemes, the Food Security Bill, through the Lok Sabha, but also made almost all parties, including the BJP, desperately vie with the Congress for some credit for the legislation.

However, what was perhaps the most interesting aspect of the approximately nine-hour-long discussion on the bill in the Lok Sabha, were the indications of an early build up of a fresh political alignment that may spice up the next parliamentary polls. The hints of new formations are something that should concern Narendra Modi the most, both in his capacity as the de-facto leader of the BJP and as the face of the party’s campaign for the next general elections.

Despite the hype surrounding Modi and the backing of his party’s activists, the turn of events in Parliament suggested that the BJP hadn’t cared to listen to his opinion on the Food Security Bill. It’s perhaps the clearest indicator that the Guajrat Chief Minister’s battles within his party aren’t over and he will need to battle for command.

The BJP’s lead speaker in the Lok Sabha, Murli Manohar Joshi, who incidentally began the debate on the bill, did not once refer to Modi’s principal demand of a meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the nation’s chief ministers. In a letter to the Prime Minister, Modi had suggested the meeting should be called to discuss the legislation threadbare before the ordinance was taken up for ratification by Parliament.

However, in the politics of competitive populism, the BJP’s central leadership apparently decided it was more prudent to support the UPA in getting the bill passed and not do anything that could even remotely be construed as an attempt to spike it.

If Murli Manohar Joshi’s omission of Modi demands should concern him as party’s potential prime ministerial candidate, there are other developments that should concern him as the BJP’s campaign committee chief.

The most notable one being the Bahujan Samaj Party floor leader, Dara Singh Chauhan, and JD(U) leader, Sharad Yadav, showering praise on Sonia Gandhi for something as trivial as her speaking in Hindi in Parliament.

The voting on the party’s amendment on the Food Security Bill, proposing to adopt the Chhattisgarh model for PDS, became a BJP-versus-the-rest affair in the Lok Sabha, which should also be a matter of concern. The government on the other hand easily sailed through all amendments suggested.

Consider the letter that Modi had sent the Prime Minister on August 7, and copies of which were sent all top BJP leaders. In the letter Modi began by saying “in my clear view this (ordinance) does not contain basic tenets which any food security legislation should meet…..the ordinance which your government has promulgated, in which unworkable statutory responsibilities have been devolved to central and state governments.”

He had argued that since the bill has “far reaching implications” on the people, on agriculture sector and “centre-state issues”, it was only appropriate that the provisions of the bill ought have been widely debated and discussed at proper forums, something which he said “had not been done so far”. He called for a meeting of all chief ministers be called before the ordinance was taken up by the Parliament.

However, in his hour long speech in Parliament, Joshi did not talk of convening a meeting of chief ministers to resolve the centre-state issues. At most, at one point the former HRD minister made a mention of the fact that the government ought to have carried out “a wider nationwide debate” and that “the provisions of the bill is against the spirit of federal structure”. The rejection of Modi’s view didn’t go unnoticed by several BJP leaders but since the issue concerned the senior leaders of the party, they’ve chosen not to talk openly about it.

Ironically, it was Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav who seemed to have taken a cue from Modi’s letter and slammed the UPA government for not talking to the chief ministers, particularly when the bill listed multiple tasks for the state governments to implement. He also pointed out the absence of criteria to identify the beneficiaries. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa had also expressed a similar opinion in the past.

To be fair to Mulayam, he is involved in the running of the state government in Uttar Pradesh, and is well aware of the problems that state governments are going to face in implementation of the bill. If Mulayam’s opposition to Modi hadn’t been so firm, it might even have been an unusual common ground for the two leaders.

Sonia’s strategic assertiveness on the Food Bill allowed her to keep her halo of supremacy and may or may not translate into votes, but it certainly won her two powerful admirers. The BSP, with whom the Congress has had a rocky relationship, and the JD(U), which seems to be leaning towards the UPA.

BSP leader Dara Singh Chauhan began by complimenting Sonia’s pro-poor tilt and praising her for her choice to speak in Hindi, and not in English. JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav, who so far has been known for his anti-Congress stance in his opening statement said he was “overwhelmed by Sonia Gandhi speaking in a language, Hindustan spoke”.

“Now since Soniaji has spoken in that language the nation would have well understood her message,” Yadav said. Incidentally, this was Sonia’s first speech in Parliament in four-and-half years of the UPA II government.

Could the BSP and JD(U)’s discovery of the merits of the Congress president translate into a stronger  relationship and even a pre-poll understanding in UP and Bihar? It may be too early to say, but politics is an art of the impossible. Given there are 120 seats between UP and Bihar, the two states have the capacity to change the electoral demography in Lok Sabha and the victor in those two states will play a major role in the formation of the next government.

source:http://www.firstpost.com/