Changing equations

Neerja Chowdhury
First Published : 20 Jan 2010 11:01:00 PM IST
Last Updated : 19 Jan 2010 11:21:57 PM IST

The appointment of national security advisor M K Narayanan as governor of West Bengal is a pointer to the changing equations in UPA II. Narayanan gets the most important state politically, from the UPA’s point of view, because as things are today, the Congress-Trinamool Congress combine seems poised to give the Left a tough fight after three decades of rule when assembly elections are held next year. That may be one reason why the CPI(M) has flayed his appointment, though the Left has been critical of using former intelligence chiefs/policemen as governors.

It is clear that Union home minister P Chidambaram has had his way in establishing who is going to be the boss of the internal security apparatus. He has already hinted at a radical restructuring of the security set up. A new body, National Counter Terrorism Centre, is on the anvil and it is expected to be set-up under the home ministry and oversee the functioning of all the security agencies, which have so far operated under the NSA.

It was hardly a secret that there was palpable tension between the home minister and the NSA. Narayanan had an inkling that his days were numbered and was overheard saying at an army function recently that he was on his way out. He was the one who had managed to stay on despite the clamour for heads after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, though the knives were out for him as much as for others. The then Union home minister Shivraj Patil and Maharashtra chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh were compelled to resign. Narayanan survived because the prime minister wanted him to continue. Part of the reason was his usefulness to the UPA in handling Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Karunanidhi on the government’s nuanced stance towards Colombo’s all-out fight against the LTTE. Narayanan has enjoyed a rare rapport with the DMK chief.

Narayanan’s initial appointment as the man to oversee internal security was attributed to Sonia Gandhi. But very soon he had managed to win Manmohan Singh’s confidence. When J N Dixit died, he was given the responsibility of looking after both internal and external security as NSA. It was said that the intelligence agencies used to report to him on a daily basis and it was he who would brief the Prime Minister. Since Chidambaram became home minister, he has insisted that the NSA — and the RAW and IB chiefs — report to him.

The upshot of Narayanan’s removal, and the possibility of his replacement by either former foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon or Shyam Saran will mean the downgrading of the position of NSA. With Chidambaram flexing his muscles, the next NSA — the nomenclature may also undergo a change — may be required to take care essentially of strategic affairs and the internal aspects of security will come under Chidambaram. To that extent Narayanan’s exit goes to strengthen the minister’s hands.

The PM may now be looking at the prevailing scenario differently. It suits him to have a stronger Chidambaram to offset the powerful Pranab Mukherjee, if necessary, and vice versa. The seasoned Mukherjee runs the finance department single-handedly, brooking no interference from anybody, and the advisor to the finance minister, enjoying MoS rank, sits next to the FM, ahead of the cabinet secretary, at all the meetings of the GoMs headed by him. In UPA I, Manmohan Singh was heavily dependent on Pranab who had headed more than 50 GoMs.

In his second stint as PM, Singh has concentrated his attention on foreign affairs, and is playing a proactive role. That is one explanation offered for why he chose to bring S M Krishna as external affairs minister, as someone without definite views or experience in foreign affairs.

The PM’s more than usual involvement was evident during Bangladesh premier Sheikh Hasina’s recent visit to India, when he ensured that nothing big brotherly was done which could embarrass Hasina back home. He brought on board Pranab as the nodal minister unofficially with Sheikh Hasina because of the comfort level she has had with the finance minister since the Seventies; he sent foreign secretary Nirupama Rao to Dhaka before the visit to reach out to the Bangladesh Opposition leader Khaleda Zia; and he insisted that Delhi should focus at this stage on what Hasina was able to give, not on what she was not able to deliver. Hence the visit was a ‘cent percent success’ in the words of Hasina, with India looking at consolidating a friend in its neighbourhood, given the Pak-China axis and the continuing uncertainties in Nepal.

Having signed the Indo-US nuclear deal during his first stint as PM, it is said that Manmohan Singh would now like to be remembered for effecting a breakthrough between India and Pakistan and would like to make progress on that front. What was seen as his Sharm-el-Sheikh faux pas by his party colleagues, de-linking terror from composite dialogue, and including a reference to Balochistan, which had the fat in the fire, was an attempt to push the peace process forward and was meant to be out-of-the-box thinking by the PM.

It was Shiv Shankar Menon who became the fall guy having facilitated the joint statement and the prime minister may well want to compensate him by bringing him in the place of Narayanan. Singh enjoys a comfort level with Menon — as also with Shyam Saran.

From all accounts, Sonia Gandhi is not playing the kind of hands-on role in government decision-making in UPA II that she was in UPA I. The party does assert from time-to-time, like it did over the Sharm-el-Sheikh statement, or against the twitters of Shashi Tharoor on Nehru. At times Sonia cracks the whip so to speak, as she did against the drift in government on prices. But by and large Sonia has chosen not to involve herself too much in matters of government this time.

Today the troika — PM, Pranab and Chidambaram — preside over UPA II with altered power equations. And yet there is a sense of drift in government that is becoming all too evident. Barring a few ministries which remain in the news about their plans and activities — Kapil Sibal, Jairam Ramesh, Anand Sharma, Veerappa Moily — there is a strange atmosphere of indifference in government today.

Whether it is Sharad Pawar saying he is not an astrologer to predict when prices would come down, or defence minister A K Antony’s silence over the Darjeeling land scam or the delayed response of sports minister M S Gill to the hockey controversy, or the almost daily problems in civil aviation, or the spectrum controversy surrounding A Raja or the absence of Alagiri from Delhi — these names are only illustrative — it does not augur well for the government. The UPA may be winning elections for the moment, but the tipping point can come at any time.

neerja_chowdhury@yahoo.com

About the author:

Neerja Chowdhury is political editor, The New Indian Express