Theory of Practice

Business Standard Column
A K Bhattacharya / New Delhi June 24, 2008, 0:25 IST
Running the government and managing alliances can be two separate responsibilities, but only in theory.
Within weeks of its formation in May 2004, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government had acquired two unique features. As the government approaches the last few months of its five-year tenure, it is time to take a look at those features and assess if they are worthy of emulation by the next government.
The first feature was the setting up of the National Advisory Council (NAC), a powerful non-governmental organisation. NAC was to act as an interface with civil society with regard to the implementation of the UPA government's national common minimum programme. It was funded by the government and drew its special powers from the fact that it was headed by none other than Congress President Sonia Gandhi.
Indeed, as long as Sonia Gandhi was its chairperson, NAC worked at a rapid pace and influenced the government's many policies in different areas. But its functioning almost came to a halt when a controversy broke out over whether the post of NAC chairperson was an office of profit and whether by occupying that position, Sonia Gandhi had flouted the rules governing all members of Parliament. Even before the controversy could be resolved, Sonia Gandhi quit her Lok Sabha seat (March 2006), sought re-election from the same Lok Sabha constituency and, as expected, won the seat a few months later. Significantly, Sonia Gandhi did not return to her post as chairperson of NAC.
NAC continued to function for two more years and its tenure expired only at the end of March 2008. But for these two years, it remained largely dormant. It did not even have a chairperson since Sonia Gandhi's resignation.
The inception of NAC was hailed as a unique move by the UPA regime to let civil society have its say in the formulation of the government's policies. There was nothing intrinsically wrong with the idea of creating a NAC-like body to advise the government on ways to implement the programme it had promised to the electorate. But as it turned out, the experiment got bogged down in controversies and it is doubtful if it would be tried out again by another government.
The second unique feature the UPA regime introduced was the manner in which the responsibilities of running the government were separated from those of running the Congress party and the alliance. As a result, Manmohan Singh as prime minister was expected to deal with issues of governance and administration. This also meant that he was not required to worry about the imperatives of keeping an alliance intact. The political management of keeping the alliance together and the responsibility of ensuring that the alliance achieved its political goals were left with Sonia Gandhi, who was the chairperson of UPA.
In the first couple of years of the UPA regime, it looked the arrangement worked beautifully. There were no doubts about Manmohan Singh's ability as an administrator or as the leader of the government. But there was nothing to suggest that he could inspire even his own party's confidence in him to manage an alliance which was as diverse as the UPA. For that difficult job, Sonia Gandhi was considered a better bet. Thus, the neat separation of responsibilities was hailed as Sonia Gandhi's masterstroke.
Problems arose soon after Manmohan Singh made his first bold move as prime minister — the proposal to sign the Indo-US civil nuclear deal. Here was a prime minister who felt that the agreement with the US would be a win-win situation for India. But those entrusted with the responsibility of managing the alliance realised the difficulties in getting the deal through without risking the government's life.
Lines were crossed at this point. Manmohan Singh was keen that his government needed that deal to make India more secure on the energy front and was willing to go ahead with the proposal even though a few of his party colleagues, alliance partners and the Left were not at all impressed with his argument. It is still not clear how this deadlock will be resolved. But no one within or outside the government is now singing praises of the unique arrangement the UPA government put in place by separating the responsibilities of running the government from those of managing the alliance partners. Such an arrangement, perhaps, works only in theory.