India Political Blog

One can call it the success of coalition politics. After all, when you are running a coalition Government, then you have to listen to your partners and sometimes take decisions that appeal to them. The Congress used to be a proud party that at one time had more than 400 Members of Parliament, but now it survives at the mercy of a host of coalition partners and outside supporters. So, the Congress has had to cancel its decisions to sell off stake in companies such as Neyveli Lignites, and other companies due to the pressure from allies. It had to agree to subvert the political system when a friend of the holiest of the holies (Quattrochi) was in the line of fire, it had to agree to block the prosecution of Laloo Prasad Yadav and Mayawati (who declares massive assets of over Rs. 50 crores), it had to look the other way when the DMK Government refused to obey the Supreme Court, it had to bend the CBI so as to get Shibu Soren acquitted by the High Court, and so on.
But the nuclear deal must have been the biggest bending of the back that the Congress has ever done. Over a period of 2 years (and it must have been updating its allies on the progress), the Congress Government has been negotiating a deal with the United States that would remove a large number of the restrictions on nuclear dealings with India. Now, we all know that the Indian civilian nuclear program has done a great deal in the face of technology cut-off, but realistically the Indian energy generation from the nuclear area has been much slower than expected and has failed to meet its targets in the past (otherwise why would we be buying nuclear reactors from Russia). Our energy needs are such that we have to be this world in our policies, and no longer stand on the ‘we can do everything’ stand.
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