Alliance

Tussle between the Congress and Mamta Banerjee – what next ?

It all seems so sudden. The increase in tension between these allies (and they have been allied for a very long time now in some way or the other) is very sudden, and confusing to a number of political observers. After all, it was a match made in heaven. The mercurial state leader, Mamta Banerjee, who was in the Congress many years previously, has always had a prime mission to remove the Communist Parties from their tight grip on West Bengal politics, the same target as the Congress, but much more focused. In the past few years, it became clear that Mamta Banerjee was going to be the main driver of the movement to oust the Left from the Writer’s Building in Kolkata, and as a result, the Congress was always going to be playing second fiddle.
Now the way that the Congress is used to its allies is that the Congress lets them take the lead in the states (or rather, the allies make it clear that since almost all of them are state level parties, they take the lead in the state), and then the Congress depends on them for support in the Central Government, and the allies really don’t rock the boat too much. Parties such as the DMK, the RJD, the NCP, or other state allies have always worked on this formula. They do not rock the Congress at the national level or cause any amount of embarrassment.
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The elections in Uttar Pradesh, key to the fortunes of all involved

Very rarely have the state elections in a specific state been so critical for the fortunes of everybody involved. Uttar Pradesh, being the most populous state of the country has always been critical for the political fortunes of the Government at the center. There was a time when it was said that nobody could come to power unless they had power in Uttar Pradesh, but that particular piece of logic has been consigned to the dustbin for more than the past 10 years now. Both, the previous NDA Government and the Current 2 runs of the UPA Government have not held any kind of dominant position in the state, and yet managed to run fairly stable Governments at the center.
In the past, both the Congress and the BJP have held huge political leadership in the state, but first the rise of the BJP as a party that played the Mandir-Masjid card managed to galvanize more power towards itself; but this was a short phenomenon, since the rise of parties representing the backwards has damaged the poll prospects of both the leading national parties (the Congress and the BJP). You had the emergence of 2 more parties that sought to claim the leadership of the backward communities, including the OBC, the Dalits, and the Muslims. Both these parties, namely the Samajwadi Party and the BSP have had power in the state of Uttar Pradesh.
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The Government backs down on FDI – a flawed approach

The Congress has done it again. For many months now, the Government has been publicly criticized for not taking any initiatives, for causing a paralysis that is slowing the process for reform in the country and combined with the harsh interest rates being set by the RBI (in order to try and fight inflation, without taking any measures on the supply side front), slowly bringing the rate of growth in the economy down. Recent reports speak of reduction in growth rates of industrial production, along with an outflow of money as major Indian businesses invest abroad in light of a reduced level of confidence in the Indian economy. This is combined with a higher level of revenue and decreased tax receipts which are causing Pranab Mukherjee to increase deficit levels and run out of money for the various welfare schemes that the Congress believes is necessary for its survival.
No Government can continue like this for very long, and when combined with the reduced public confidence following the agitation over the Lokpal Bill, the Government has to show it is dedicated to growth; and for this, some steps of reform are needed to be advocated. So, the Government decided to show that it is focused on reform and not stuck on any paralysis, and thus came the Cabinet decision to allow FDI in multi-brand retail to 51%, effectively allowing the major international retailers to come into the country. This is a decision that has been contested for a long time, since the fear of letting large retailers such as Walmart into the country is that they will be so powerful that they will put the local retailers out of business, and there are a large number of retailers and people dependent on them, which in turn means that there is a political cost.
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