'Confusion Worse Confounded', as Indian Ministers Turn Politics Into Farce

[user-Narotham Reddy]

From: Joydeep Mitra <joy...@bcmp.med.harvard.edu>

'Confusion Worse Confounded', as Indian Ministers Turn Politics Into Farce

By JOHN F. BURNS: February 24, 1998: New York Times: <let...@nytimes.com>

NEW DELHI, India -- With results in India's general election barely a
week away, the country's largest state, Uttar Pradesh, slid into something
approaching political farce on Monday, with unpredictable consequences
for the two main political groups fighting for power.

A day of turmoil in Lucknow, the state capital, ended with rival claimants
of the post of chief minister in the state government encamped in the chief
minister's office suite, each appealing to the police to throw the other
out. The state, with 140 million people, was effectively without a government.

Political chaos is not new in Uttar Pradesh, which has seen a succession of
revolving-door governments for at least five years. But the spectacle in
Lucknow between the candidates representing the two major political
parties created a sensation even in distant parts of India.

It encapsulates the chaos that many Indians fear will develop in New Delhi
if the national election follows the pattern of three previous elections
since 1989 in failing to produce a clear-cut winner.

Two of three main rounds of voting have been completed in the staggered,
state-by-state polling made necessary by the vast Indian electorate of
600 million. The third round is set for Saturday.

While events in Lucknow cannot have any impact on the choices made by
the 450 million voters in districts where votes have been cast, Indian
political commentators say they believe that the 150 million people
eligible to vote in a dozen states this weekend could be influenced.

Until Saturday, Uttar Pradesh was governed by the Bharatiya Janata Party,
the core group in a Hindu nationalist alliance expected to be the largest
bloc in Parliament after the election. But the party's hold on power in the
state was broken when the Congress Party, the most powerful of the so-called
secular parties, worked with smaller, like-minded parties to lure back
about 30 members of Parliament who had defected to the BJP, depriving
the party of a majority in the Uttar Pradesh legislature.

Barely 36 hours after a new government was sworn into office in Lucknow
under a Congress-backed chief minister, the state's High Court, sitting in
the Ganges River city of Allahabad, issued an order voiding the dismissal of
the incumbent chief minister pending a court hearing on a countersuit filed by
the parties that formed the new state government sworn in over the weekend.

The incumbent, Kalyan Singh of the BJP, immediately reoccupied part of his
office in Lucknow, only to find his rival for the post, Jagdambika Pal,
refusing to vacate an adjacent part of the office. As the impasse dragged on
into the night, Singh and Pal issued competing calls for police action.

While Singh described Pal as an impostor, Pal said that he had taken an oath
of office and would remain in the post until the Congress-appointed governor
of the state, Romesh Bhandari, dismissed him. "What Kalyan Singh is doing
is illegal and unconstitutional," Pal said.

Senior Congress Party officials who helped engineer the political upheaval
in the Uttar Pradesh legislature were saying little on Monday about their
motives.

But the purpose appears to have been to undermine Bharatiya Janata's
assertion in the national election campaign that it is the only party
that can provide the country with political stability, since no other
political group, including the Congress Party, is likely to come close
to the 240 seats in the 545-seat Parliament that opinion polls have
forecast for the BJP alliance.

The polls have forecast at most about 170 seats for Congress, 100 seats
more than many Indian commentators expected the party to win before its
campaign was taken over by Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born standard-bearer for
the Nehru-Gandhi family that ruled India, under Congress governments, for
most of the period since independence in 1947.

Mrs. Gandhi has electrified the campaign, drawing more than 12 million
people so far, according to some estimates, to more than 100 campaign
rallies around the country.

Most Indian commentators expect the days after the election results are
known, possibly as early as next Tuesday, to be filled with efforts by
the two main parties to round up a parliamentary majority by forming
alliances with parties outside their blocs.

In this, Congress, even if it wins fewer seats than Bharatiya Janata,
could emerge with an advantage. Of the parties not already pledged to the two
main contenders or to a third major contender, the United Front, none
seem likely to favor the Hindu nationalists.

While some voters going to the polls on Saturday seem likely to sympathize
with the BJP, the events in Lucknow might aggravate the impatience of others,
leading them to support the Congress Party, especially at a time when
Mrs. Gandhi is reminding vast crowds across the country of the heyday of
Congress rule.