Left’s defining moment (as appeared in The New Indian Express, August 17 2007)

The ongoing exchanges between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the CPM leaders on the Indo-US nuclear deal have been carried out from within the confines of the Prime Minister’s Office. A more ideal place would have been 10 Janpath. The two sides could have agreed, for a settlement of the dispute, through arbitration. Sonia Gandhi, after all, has shown her ability to arbitrate disputes between individuals and parties with elan in the past. For some reason, the Left leaders desisted from taking this course right from the start and agreed to a drawing room confabulation only at a later stage.It is indeed a bright spark for those who care for democracy to celebrate the fact that the leaders decided to debate their differences in the public domain. Now that the two sides - the Congress and the Left - have stated their respective positions, it is clear that the issue is now at a point of no return. While the Left finds the nuclear deal ‘unacceptable’, Sonia Gandhi has gone on record endorsing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s position that there is no way that the deal will be re-negotiated.Logically, this leaves only one option open. And that is to raise the issue in Parliament and raise it in a manner that the debate is not merely meant to record the respective positions and instead in a manner that the conflicting positions are voted upon. This has become important because the point at issue is not a mere difference of perception within a political coalition or between the ruling and the opposition benches.The left believes that the Indo-US deal has clauses that bind India’s sovereign rights and also that of India’s attitude towards another country (Iran). This would enforce far-reaching changes and restrictions insofar as India’s foreign policy, the nation’s energy generation capabilities and its right to conduct tests in the realm of developing nuclear weapons. But there is nothing in the Constitution that binds the Government of the day to seek Parliament’s approval, before entering into a treaty with another country. There is something incongruous about this.The Constitution, as it is now, makes it imperative for the Union Government to obtain Parliament’s approval of the dismissal of a State Government and dissolving a State Assembly. This was not necessary until 1993. But the Supreme Court judgment in the S R Bommai case made this difference. And it is strange that Parliamentary approval is not taken in the case of a deal with another country even if it binds the nation and successive governments to the whims of the rulers of that country. This incongruity will have to be addressed. That is, however, the imperative for the future. In the immediate context, we have Rule 184 of the Lok Sabha Rules and Procedure. Otherwise known as Adjournment Motion, it is possible for the opposition (as well as parties that support the Government from outside) to insist that the House postpone all its regular business until something more immediate and of concern to the nation is resolved.Now, even if the Left parties are silent on this, the BJP has already made it known that it will demand a discussion on the Indo-US deal under this rule. The significance of any discussion under this rule is that the motion taken up for discussion under Rule 184 is put to vote. And in that sense, it is as useful as a motion of no-confidence. There is, however, a small catch. The Speaker of the Lok Sabha has the right to reject the notice for a motion under 184. In older times when the Speaker happened to be from the ruling party, the fate of such a demand could have been foreseen. Somnath Chatterjee will now have to decide on admitting such a motion. It remains to be seen as to which way he does that. Chatterjee had been in the CPM for several years and it will be fair to expect that he sees the issue in the same way as Prakash Karat does.While that remains to be seen, in the event an adjournment motion is admitted and the Left parties decide to support the motion (along with the parties in the NDA and the UNPA), the Government will be reduced to a minority. The combined strength of the UPA without the Left will be somewhere around 236 votes in the House of 544. In other words, it is possible for the Left to force Manmohan Singh to eat his words and re-negotiate. And in the event he refuses to do that, the Left could even force Sonia Gandhi (notwithstanding the categorical endorsement she did of the deal) to ask Manmohan Singh to go and ‘‘elect’’ someone else from her stable as Prime Minister and make it clear that their support will be conditional on an assurance that the Indo-US deal is re-negotiated.The moot question is whether the Left is prepared to push things that far. There is, after all, the possibility, remote as it may sound, that Sonia Gandhi stands resolutely for the deal as it is. And in that event, the Government suffers censure in the Lok Sabha and this leads to a mid-term election. The Left, after all, will not support an NDA-led Government and the UNPA does not have the numbers to form a non-Congress, non-BJP Government. In other words, fresh election is the only option.Forcing a mid-term election is not a bad thing to do if Karat and his comrades are convinced that the nation’s sovereignty is at stake because of the Indo-US deal. This is certainly a worthier cause than ensuring a stable government that may profess to be secular and democratic. Yet, there is very little indication in the past few days that the Left is serious about this option. It is more likely that the Left party MPs rave and rant against the Prime Minister and the Government in Parliament and when the Prime Minister completes his reply, Basudev Acharya will likely storm out of the Lok Sabha with his party-men in tow! That will ensure the defeat of an adjournment motion even if the NDA and the UNPA vote against the Government. A motion under rule 184 will be carried through only if a simple majority of those present in the House vote for it. A walkout by the Left parties will ensure that the Government is not censured. And it will take a while before someone from Karat’s stable laments about all this. India, by then, will be bound by the deal and the Left will be held guilty of having failed to scuttle it even when it was possible for them to have done it.