HatTrick Mamata

Pandemonium in the Rajya Sabha over Lokpal Bill

Bengal’s mercurial chief minister Mamata Bannerjee has scored a hat trick of sorts – she has stalled three major measures which her senior ally - the Congress had sought to bring in this year.

But this time round, it may be Congress which may be cheering the self goal she scored through her lieutenants in Delhi by stalling the Lokpal legislation in the upper house of Parliament.

First, was the Teesta pact with Bangladesh, which she scuttled by disagreeing with a very basic and simple sharing of river waters in order, so say Congress leaders, to arm twist the centre into giving more funds to her cash strapped state government.

Her brash and extremely un-diplomatic act at the penultimate hour, left Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and India as a whole, red faced on the Prime Minister’s maiden visit to Dhaka.

The Teesta river which starts out as a mountain rivulet in Sikim flows down as a broad river through North Bengal to enter Bangladesh as a tributary feeding into the mighty Brahmaputra.

The deal promised water sharing on an equitable 50:50 basis at Gajoldoba barrage near Siliguri in West Bengal. With the deal falling through, despite Singh’s other gifts for Bangladesh – duty free garment exports, border enclave swaps which gave Bangladesh large tracts of Indian land etc. - India was painted a fickle friend.

Her second, was to force the ruling alliance to place in cold storage Commerce Minister Anand Sharma’s move to bring foreign direct investment in retail. She left a loophole in her protest against the move, by uttering something about doing what was good for farmers. Again a signal, Congress Mandarins say, that she wanted more funds.

In a sense, the Congress was not really unhappy with her tantrums that time as it gave them an opportunity to cold store a necessary but unpopular move which would have hit millions of mom and pop stores ahead of  key assembly elections to Uttar Pradesh state, India’s most populous province.

The move to open up to the Walmarts and Tescos of the world would surely have been used by opposition parties such as the pro-trader Bharatiya Janata Party and regional outfit Bahujan Samaj Party to accuse the ruling alliance of selling out to transnationals and turning the issue into an election trump card.

The Congress rather cleverly used this stalling as a chance to tell farmer-voters of how mindless opposition had nixed a chance to bring a legislation which could have helped them sell produce at better prices.

This time round Mamata’s party, after making noises of unhappiness with the Lokpal bill ended up supporting it in the Lok Sabha or the lower house of India’s Parliament by not seeking divisions on amendments moved by it.

Later, on her express instructions, Trinamool Congress MPs in the Upper house or Rajya Sabha made it clear that they would seek a vote on their key amendment to the bill which seeks to set up an independent Ombudsman.

The bill suffers many defects, but as one Central Minister said at least it was being enacted and later Parliaments would have the luxury of improving upon it. Trinamool’s amendment in the name of defending federalism, sought to keep out a clause which would have allowed states to set up their own Ombudsmen to be called Lokayuktas.

Trinamool’s stand, encouraged a clutch of parties such as Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party and Rashtriya Janata Dal, which had earlier in the week walked out in the Lok Sabha or lower house making it easy for the ruling alliance to pass the bill, to decide to stay and vote against the bill.

This meant the ruling coalition did not have the numbers to pass the bill, forcing the Congress to stall for time and take the cover of an ensuing chaos in the house to put everything on the backburner and prepare for another day.

Congress did not specifically blame its ally but rather pleaded helplessness as  some 189 ammendments had been brought by lawmakers from among opposition and allied parties which needed study nd scrutiny.

India's Parliamentary affairs minister Pawan Bansal said he needed more time to respond, arguing “If we want to be true to the cause we need more time to go through the (opposition proposed) ammendments."

But the Congressman on the street is already whispering `Mamata does not want any oversight body to look into the affairs of her government.’ Till now, they had little ammunition to attack her. Her popularity seemed teflon coated and every little thing they said against her seemed petulance on the part of an ignored partner in a stale marriage.

Mamata’s honeymoon period after her landslide victory earlier this year will soon be over. People at large and newspapers in particular will soon start asking more critical questions. Who slept over lack of safety measures at AMRI hospital? Why are farmers unable to get announced support price for their grain?

At the same time, repeated bids to trash the Congress while asking for more money, may see the Congress coming up with more procedural wrangles which reduces the flow of mullah through the federal pipeline.

Turning an uneasy ally into a hidden enemy may not exactly be a great strategy for Trinamool in the long run.  The Communist Party of India (Marxist) learnt that the hard way in the last elections.

See Also:  Anna Checkmated

Mamata in Delhi

On Friday, October 21,  Delhi's corridors of power witnessed a new phenomenon - Hurricane Mamata.  Bengal’s chief minister Mamata Banerjee swept like an Aila unleashed in her quest for an elusive `big bang’ package for her home state. The centre says it wants to help, but not in a single Diwali bonanza.

A lunchtime meeting at 7 Race Course Road with prime minister Manmohan Singh, evening tea with rural development minister Jairam Ramesh at her flat, and a planned flight back to Calcutta tomorrow in Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s 14-seater Embraer, were all part of the chief minister’s `Get Money from Delhi’ mission.

Mamata complained bitterly to Singh that of every Rs 1 West Bengal gets, she ends up spending 94 paise in repaying a mountain of debt left behind by the Left front and in paying salaries and pension to her staff. “I have just 6 paise out of Rs 1 that we earn or get, to do any kind of development work … how can anyone do anything with that kind of money?”

The chief minister said after her meeting with the prime minister “on one side we have Junglemahal, on the other Darjeeling, besides 11 of our 19 district are backward … the Centre should help us.” A Rs 500 crore package for Darjeeling’s development which she has demanded still lies bound in red tape in Delhi’s corridors of power. Though Jairam Ramesh has written a letter to her indicating his ministry would declare two more districts – Bankura and Purulia – as Maoist infested and these would get funds from the Centre’s Integrated Action Plan, Mamata knows that money can only flow only after the home ministry and plan panel approves each fund release.

Mamata wants her states’ more than Rs 2 lakh crore debt recast and at the very least “a moratorium for three years” on repayment of interest. Mukherjee has tried to help out by setting up a high level committee on debt recast for the three most debt stressed states – Kerala, West Bengal and Punjab. But the committee’s report will have to pass muster through many layers of the bureaucracy and be acceptable to the country’s finance commission before a debt recast package is actually ordered.

North Block officials say Mukherjee wants to help but within rules. “We know Bengal is a special case because of the financial mess which the previous government left behind and will help under various schemes – money will come as each scheme gets approved … but a big bang package which she seems to be seeking is difficult … that would also cause heart burn elsewhere and we would be open to accusations of favouritism,” pointed out officials.

The centre’s problem with Mamata is that she not only wants her monies in one go but also as of yesterday. “In this five months (since the Trinamool-Congress alliance came to power), we have got nothing,” she told newspersons.

Money already sanctioned as central assistance to the tune of more than Rs 9,000 crore, is also similarly still lying in Delhi’s coffers, caught up in the red tape of checks and cross checks which the bureaucracy submits all pay-outs to.

To the extent that red tape is holding up her money, officials admit, she has a point, but in many cases she wants assurances of money for which schemes have yet to be drawn up by her state government and submitted. Ramesh, on his part, tried to keep the mercurial leader happy by stating “I have assured the chief minister that the rural development ministry is a friend, ally and a partner” and would clear her schemes within the shortest possible time after they are submitted.

Mamata also complained her state did not get its share of coal royalty. Something, which mines ministry official say they can’t get as it charges an `illegal’ coal cess which no other state charges. The cabinet had consequently decided four years ago not to give West Bengal the benefit of coal royalty as long as it continued to charge a cess.

Top officials say money can come out of special schemes to help hill districts, tribal districts, border districts, for earthquake relief in Darjeeling, to build infrastructure in Bangladeshi enclaves which will be transferred to India and even the truly big bonanza of a debt recast, but Mamata “must be patient.”

Officials also warn the Prime Minister’s Office to which she has been rushing with her demands and complaints isn’t exactly happy with her either. By jeopardising an agreement with Bangladesh over Teesta water sharing, she had also held up a transit treaty with that country which was desperately needed by the north east to link up with mainland India and in the process made the Prime Minister and the country lose face in Bangladesh. That’s something which the ruling Congress can’t afford to forget or forgive in a hurry.