PM, not Mamata Banerjee, UPA’s biggest problem

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PM, not Mamata Banerjee, UPA’s biggest problem

By N. V Subramanian
DNA
Thursday, March 29, 2012

Mamata Banerjee’s humiliation of Dinesh Trivedi and the
partial rollback of his eminently reasonable budget
continue to elicit angry commentary. The question that
remains unasked and unanswered, however, is this: If the
Centre is to have coalition governments in the
foreseeable future, would they be held hostage by the
likes of Mamata, or have fundamental flaws in UPA-2
destroyed its image and capacity to deliver, with the
West Bengal chief minister being only partly to blame?
The second proposition is more likely to be true.

This writer has a slightly unorthodox position on the
Dinesh Trivedi controversy. Whilst his budget was good,
it militated against Trinamool Congress ideology. You can
heap scorn on Mamata’s ideology and say worse things. But
the fact remains that she has the votes in West Bengal.
UPA-2 has taken her support. Dinesh Trivedi was her
nominee for railway minister. While he needn’t have
shared the specifics of the rail budget with her to
maintain secrecy, he could have discussed the broad
parameters and principles, the idea being to involve her
in the decision making so as to avoid future
embarrassment and loss of face.

For whatever reason, Trivedi did not think it necessary
to keep his party boss in the loop. And not learning from
Mamata’s past behaviour (Teesta waters, NCTC, Lokpal
bill, etc), neither did anybody in the Union cabinet
think it politic to gain Mamata’s consent on the
controversial second-class fare hike, which she believes
hits her constituency of poor. Yes, there are classical
problems with someone outside the Union cabinet having a
veto power on its decisions. But it is laughable to
suggest that only Mamata has gathered such clout.
Considering how 2G spectrum allocation decisions were
made, the Union cabinet ceded all its powers to the DMK.
As the food minister during high inflation, Sharad Pawar
was outside the PM’s control. And to suggest that the PM
is boss, and that Sonia Gandhi plays no role in UPA-2
policies is to be egregiously uneconomical with the
truth.

Continues at:

http://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/column_pm-not-mamata-banerjee-upas-biggest-problem_1668684

Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti


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