The Lofty Lantern

After the Indian parliament confirmed its trust in Manmohan Singh’s government and by extension the 123 Nuclear Agreement with the United States, the opposition is realigning. The two national political parties in India are the center-left Congress Party and the conservative BJP. In the most recent battle, the BJP added the Communists as allies forming a right-left coalition that proved insufficient to defeat the Congress Party’s coalition.

Those strange bedfellows didn’t remain so for long. Now the opposition to the Congress Party is splitting into a conservative wing and into a Third Front, consisting of the Communist parties and the independent leftist BSP, led by Mayawati. This Third Front is relying on the fact that roughly half of India’s voters support neither nominally national party, but rather one of the many regional parties.

Meanwhile, the BJP is trying to move into some of the space left open by the Congress Party. To gain the support of the Samajwadi Party, Congress was forced to retract its support to a bill guaranteeing one third of all political seats to women. Now, the BJP is backing it. The BJP now needs to rebuild its support, considering it just ejected 8 of its 130 members of the Lok Sabha for either voting against it in the trust vote, or abstaining.

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The Indian government won their vote confirming trust in their leadership by a slim 275-256 margin, practically guaranteeing that the 123 Nuclear Agreement between the US and India will pass, probably by a larger margin.

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As his side appears to be nearing victory, this must be the icing on Samajwadi Party’s General Secretary Amar Singh’s day.

Interestingly, the two members of the Congress Party to abandon it - Kuldeep Bishnoi and Dr. Arvind Kumar Sharma - are both from Haryana. Of the 10 members of parliament from that state, 9 of them are members of Congress while the 10th is of the conservative BJP Party. The other 7 Congressmen are expected to vote with their party.

There are reports that as few as 33 of the Samajwadi Party’s members of parliament will back the government, 2 less than was previously reported. If those two parliamentarians back the opposition, then the government’s lead would shrink to 3

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Vanlalzawma, the only MP for the Mizo National Front (MNF), who was expected to vote for the opposition against the government, announced he would abstain, bringing the magic number required to get a majority down to 271. (There are 542 voting members in the Lok Sabha but two - Vanlalzawma and Banerjee of the All India Trinamool Congress - are abstaining. In the case of a tie, the Speaker would cast the decisive vote). The government now has a 270-263 vote lead, with 7 votes remaining undecided.

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Soma Bhai Patel, a member of the conservative BJP party, announced that he would vote with the government, constituting their 270th vote. They will likely need 271 or 272 to win the trust vote in two days. The opposition now has 264 votes

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About that single sentence, the Lok Sabha, the representative body with the largest constituency in democratic history, has begun to debate. Over the next two days, the various Indian political parties will argue and ultimately confirm or deny its trust in the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and by extension back or oppose the government’s proposed nuclear agreement.

The Prime Minister won a small victory today, securing the abstention of Mamata Banerjee, the sole voting member of the All India Trinamool Conference (AITC), who would otherwise have voted for the opposition, giving the government a legitimate four vote advantage. A Cabinet Minister said that they have 276 votes, 4 more than the amount needed for an absolute majority, and as many as 6 more than the amount needed to win. That account probably includes some members of other parties whose support the Prime Minister is hoping to gain. They are also hoping that as many as nine other opposition voters will join Banerjee and abstain.

The rumors on flipped voting are focused right now on two individual members of parliament, if only somebody would know their names. Tukaram Renge Patil, a member of the Hindu nationalist Shiv Sena Party (SS. Seriously), has been in hiding, and may be planning either to abstain from the votes or to support the government. Meanwhile, the Times of India is reporting that a member of the conservative BJP Party from Madhya Pradesh will back the government; but provides no names. The BJP has 24 MPs from Madhya Pradesh.

After Mayawati’s dazzling rise this past week, gaining five votes for her Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and becoming a likely Prime Minister should the government fail, she has begun to be attacked by the Congress Party for some ethical lapses. The Communist Party of India (CPI) responded by trying to deemphasize her support, and say that the leadership of the anti-government coalition was coming from them.

In the debates in the Lok Sabha, geopolitics have made their entrance, with External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee saying that the nuclear agreement will be like a “passport” for India, expanding their access to the world community. Sitaram Yuchury, of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)) Party, responded by saying it would enter India into the US orbit and force it to attack Iran.

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MP Thupstan Chhewang from Manipur is one of the seven remaining undecided voters, not counting those still to be poached from the various larger parties, and he is ready for business. Though his state is on the Bangladeshi border, his main concern is the fate of Ladakh, a largely Tibetan Buddhist area in the majority Muslim province of Kashmir, which he thinks ought to be its own union territory.

The Government and opposition traded solid votes today. Arvind Sharma, a member of the Congress Party, became the 5th new member of the independent leftist BSP Party led by Mayawati.  Ram Swaroop, meanwhile, a member of the Janata Dal (United) (JD(U) Party, an ally of the conservative BJP Party, has announced he will vote for the Congress-led government. Swaroop will likely be ejected from his party, but he has not yet announced what would be his destination. The vote remains 269-266

The Hindustani Times is reporting that three members of the Hindu nationalist Shiv Sena party (the unfortunately acronymed SS Party), are considering joining the government in the upcoming votes. Some had suspected that the party might not take a stand on the bill when their newspaper, the Saamana, backed the proposed nuclear bill strongly saying it was in the country’s interest, leading the Congress party to try to persuade them to join them. There have been conflicting reports over whether some members skipped a crucial meeting, and which members they may be. It appears, however, that the entire delegation was there.

The opposition parties are working to ensure that all of their votes show up, which in some cases is more difficult than others. Harishandra Chavan, for example, a 57 year old member of parliament with the conservative BJP Party, was in a serious car accident last month which fractured bones in his back and hip to the point that he still can’t walk. Never fear, though: the BJP is outfitting a special plane and stretcher so his vote can be counted. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, another BJP MP is also dealing with serious medical issues, but is recieving a special dispensation to vote from the Parliament’s lobby. The BJP is currently trying to get similar concessions for two other seriously ill members of the Lok Sabha as well.

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It depends.

A few days ago, the government secured the five votes of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), which though part of its normal governing coalition, was considering jumping ship. Its leader, Shibu Soren, had been displeased after he was denied a seat in the cabinet earlier this year, despite having his murder conviction overturned.

Yes, that’s right. In 2006, he was convicted of having murdered his private secretary ten years earlier. In 2007, however, the charge was thrown out. This wasn’t an original experience for Soren, having also had to resign from the cabinet in 2004 after a warrant was issued for his arrest over a killing in the 1980s. When not facing murder charges, Soren has also been convicted for selling his vote. Now, however, he has five votes for, well, sale. Democratically speaking, of course.

As it became clear just how close this vote would be, Soren met both with Congress Party leader Sonia Gandhi and with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. In those meetings, the party made thirteen policy requests of the government, the results of which are not yet certain. What is definite, however, is that Shibu Soren is back in the Cabinet as the Coal Minister, and another member of his 5 MP party will recieve one of the ministries of state. And once again, all is right in the world.

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This little party remains the pivot of treaties and worlds. Having said this about a dozen times, it began to feel repetitive, which is why I stopped writing about this for a while. Now, however, it’s getting exciting again.

I’d say that the campaign, to win their votes which may very well determine whether the 123 Nuclear Agreement between the US and India passes or not, was getting nastier except that would assume that it hadn’t been nasty earlier. The results of the fight are certainly decreasing their voting power from the 39 that they wielded before this campaign begun, and appears now to be closer to 35.

The main rival of the Samajwadi Party is the BSP, a group led by Mayawati Kumari, the 52 year old female Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh (the largest state in India), and a Dalit (what used to be referred to as “Untouchable”). In the most recent elections, her party managed to win a decisive majority in the crucial state by constructing an alliance crossing caste lines and religious divisions. She was considered to be a significant force, but still at the head of a party with only 17 votes in the Lok Sabha (Indian Parliament)

This has been a rather good week for her. First, she got herself a long profile in the New York Times, and then she has managed to successfully poach a number of members of parliament from the Samajwadi Party, and now it appears that should Manmohan Singh’s government fall, she will be a serious candidate to be the next Prime Minister of India and the second Dalit PM ever.

The BSP and the Samajwadi Party share similar sets of voters and support in the same region, and therefore occupy together the decisive space in these political fights. Each member of the Samajwadi Party who jumps ship has thus far joined the BSP, (including its General Secretary) and the Samajwadi Party is hoping to grab as many as 8 of the BSP voters.

The conservative party’s fissures are also coming to the open, with MP Somabhai Patel Patel appearing to be a likely vote for the Government and nuclear agreement.

With votes jumping around, it is difficult to get any accurate head count. The Government seems to be confident - perhaps overconfident - that it will get its majority.

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The passage of the 123 Nuclear agreement between the United States and India in the Indian Parliament was to come down to an alliance of the governing Congress Party and the independent leftist Samajwadi Party. There are now indications that the latter is about to collapse over this agreement, putting the prospects of the agreement’s passage in serious risk.

Munnawar Hasan, a member of parliament and the Samajwadi Party, declared his opposition to the deal and called it “anti-Muslim,” and has claimed that he has the support of at least 7 other members in his party. Already, at least one other MP has openly joined him. Voting against the party’s leadership would require them to leave the party, probably to join the BSP, another independent leftist party which opposes the bill.

The situation could get worse. The leadership of the Samajwadi Party held a meeting to try to hold their membership together. Only 16 of their 39 members in the Lok Sabha showed up.

Congress Party’s managers seem surprisingly unconcerned. They claim that they already have 280 votes, 8 more than the 272 needed.

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