‘Politicising’ price rise

Neerja Chowdhury
First Published : 10 Feb 2010 11:23:00 PM IST
Last Updated : 10 Feb 2010 12:25:17 AM IST

For someone as seasoned as Pranab Mukherjee to tell Narendra Modi “not to politicise” the price rise issue raised many an eyebrow. This time, the Gujarat chief minister was only reminding the government to implement its poll promise of 25 kg of grain at Rs 3/kg which would provide the necessary cushion for Below Poverty Line families. And this was at the meeting of chief ministers called by the prime minister to take stock of the situation. Food prices have been going up at the annual rate of almost 18 per cent in recent months, the price of sugar has more than doubled, pulses have jumped to levels unimaginable in the past, and this is something that is disturbing even the middle class (What can be said about the plight of the BPL groups?)

Surely, those attending the PM’s meet were expected to question the government why this has happened, what it proposes to do, and suggest measures that could be taken to bring immediate relief. However, whatever be the causes for price rise — drought in parts of the country, futures trading, softness towards hoarders and blackmarketers, Sharad Pawar’s announcements predicting a rise in prices, or the failure to import in time and build a buffer stock — the CMs were not expected to sit there and only nod in agreement.

Surely, raising questions is not ‘politicising’ the issue, and anyway, economics and politics cannot be delinked. Prices have in the past decided political fortunes. They, along with the squabbles in the Janata parivar, were responsible for the ouster of the Janata Party in January 1980, bringing Indira Gandhi back to power. The rise in onion prices in 1998 lost the BJP its state governments in the north, and the Congress its governments in the Hindi heartland in 2003.

The UPA raised the procurement price of wheat before the elections last year benefiting the farmer and hurting the consumer, which was being dubbed as a political move. But the consumer versus farmer debate is an ongoing one, and the government of the day has to strike a balance and take a call. There is nothing new in political parties using ‘prices’ to score a point or to put their opponents in the dock. This is part of a healthy discourse in parliamentary democracy. If the opposition parties, or their CMs, do not raise issues which affect people so vitally, they have no business to be there.

This cannot be compared to petty politicking for narrow, individual gains, which can lead to vitiating the atmosphere between communities, the kind that Narendra Modi played in the past. This time he cannot even be accused of opposing for the sake of opposing, as he praised the efforts of the prime minister and Union home minister on security issues.

So why did Pranab make that comment, which almost had Modi walk out in protest? The Union finance minister is the most seasoned player in the UPA today. He virtually carried the UPA-I on his shoulders, with the GoMs he headed and troubleshooting he did for the party, though he is known to be short on patience. He is the only minister in the Cabinet who can scold his colleagues and they begin to get apprehensive if his face contorts and acquires a pink hue.

Insiders say that Pranab ticked off Modi to show solidarity with food and agriculture minister Sharad Pawar who has come in for huge criticism from others within the ruling party, and this indicated a delicate shift in the power balance inside the ruling combine. When Congress leaders were speaking against Pawar at the Congress Working Committee the previous day — and some have made a case for taking away one of Pawar’s portfolios to hold him responsible for the price mess — Pranab was among the few who did not condemn him (by innuendo or otherwise).

Just as the legal profession has its ‘legalese’, the language which the legal community understands, and the diplomatic world its ‘diplomatese’, so also there is ‘politicalese’, which the political community uses. This is in many ways a sign language through which appropriate signals are conveyed without spelling them out in a language ordinary people comprehend, and it has become part of the political process.

A beleaguered Pawar went to call on Bal Thackeray last Sunday. Ostensibly Pawar went in his capacity as a cricket administrator to urge the Shiv Sena chief to give up his opposition to the Australian players playing in the IPL. In some way his visit countered the essence of Rahul Gandhi’s message conveyed successfully — that the Sena could not hold Mumbai or the state to ransom. By pleading with senior Thackeray to allow the Australians to play, Pawar was only underscoring the Shiv Sena ability — and right — to do so.

Rahul Gandhi’s visit to Mumbai despite the Sena’s threats not only captured the imagination of the country by calling the Shiv Sena’s bluff, it also pressed panic buttons in opposing parties as well as in the NCP. Pawar’s meet with the senior Thackeray, with whom he enjoys a rapport, is being seen as an exploratory move as well as a warning to the Congress leadership to desist from messing around with him, and putting all the blame for prices at his doorsteps.

It is another matter that it will not be so easy for the NCP to go with the Shiv Sena, if push comes to shove. For, the moment Pawar pulls out of the UPA, his party will break, with one half swerving to the Congress, leaving the NCP weaker than it is today. Before the elections last year, it was being said quite openly that if the NCP did not pull off a poll alliance with the Congress, many of its senior leaders would walk across to the Congress.

Last week’s events show that while Rahul Gandhi is making waves and getting his act together and building his team in preparation for the big fight in 2014, there is a lack of coherence in the UPA, and there are growing tensions between the Congress and its allies, be it with Mamata or with the DMK (on the A Raja affair) and now with the NCP.

There is also drift in the government, or else the price rise situation would never have been allowed to slide to such an extent. Having won 206 seats in the Lok Sabha, and having made a reasonable showing in the bypolls that followed, the ruling combine, barring a few ministries like home and finance, is now in a complacent mode. It is banking on the opposition not being able to get its act together. It forgets that when a tipping point comes, it does come suddenly, particularly on issues such as prices.