UPA’s decks cleared for new chance at governance

Pranab Mukherjee’s nomination as the ruling coalition’s candidate for the President of India, complete with its attendant drama, has served to highlight or produce three important changes that provide grounds for optimism. The first is greater coherence within the UPA. For far too long, the alliance has been held hostage to the notion that no decision can be taken without consensus among all the allies. Since there is little consensus in our political class on pretty much anything apart from hanging on to power, the result has been drift and dither.

Now, Mamata Banerjee has forced the coalition to drop this unnatural allegiance to consensus, and embrace the right decision over objections from a truculent ally, the alliance and its government can begin to take other decisions relating to economic policy and governance that are right even if not wildly popular with all the allies. Ms Mamata Banerjee has allowed herself to be outmanoeuvred by Mulayam Singh Yadav, who has now emerged a crucial ally, while she has become expendable.

Yadav might appear rustic but has championed policies like petro-price decontrol and is more likely to support reform that had been vetoed by Banerjee, such as FDI in retail. The second favourable development would be departure of Mukherjee’s larger-than-life presence in the government. A politician of the old school, he chose to tackle issues one by one rather than through systemic and institutional logic. His seniority and ubiquity in the government hindered articulation of systemic coherence. Now, there is scope for smoother coordinated functioning, leading to better decisions and execution.

The third factor made clear by the presidential drama is the BJP’s state of disarray. It could not even produce a candidate of its own while the UPA waffled and wavered over its nominee. A sidelined Advani had to do the negotiations with potential allies even as discordant music played in the background from verbal spats with principal ally Nitish Kumar. What this means for the larger polity is stability till elections come up in 2014 as scheduled. The ruling UPA needs to grab this opportunity to begin governing, for a change.