NEW DELHI, Nov 22: The Indian parliament will open on Wednesday with a turbulent winter session for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s United Progressive Alliance (UPA) after it lost Bihar to the opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in a major electoral upset.
Dr Singh is bracing also for a potentially debilitating showdown with the opposition over a bunch of scandals, one of which, the alleged Iraqi oil-for-food bribes, has already forced the exit of Kunwar Natwar Singh as foreign minister.
The assembly election results in Bihar have given a clear victory to the NDA, in which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is a junior partner.
It is claimed that a division amongst the secular and democratic parties has made it possible for the BJP to make it at last as a member of Bihar’s ruling coalition, India’s second most populous state.
Because BJP president Lal Kishan Advani must find a successor by next month, the result in Bihar has led to a jostling among its second ranking leaders. But even if it proves to be a Pyrrhic victory for the BJP, the pressure will still remain on Dr Singh to manage his rattled alliance.
“The reasons for the setback in a state which had never given a mandate for an alliance which includes the BJP, must be gone into so that appropriate lessons are drawn,” the Communist Party of India (Marxist) said in a statement.
Riding the crest of a wave for a change in Bihar, the Janata Dal (United)-BJP combine won an absolute majority and wrested power from Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal, which had an uninterrupted reign of 15 years.
In the elections, second in eight months, forced by a premature dissolution of the 243-member Assembly, the Nitish Kumar-led NDA bagged 142 seats, 20 more than the half way mark of 122.
Mr Kumar’s JD-U won 87 seats and BJP 55 seats against 55 and 37 won in the March elections which had thrown up a hung verdict, president’s rule and the consequence dissolution.
NDA’s chief ministerial candidate 54-year-old Kumar is an electrical engineer who led the coalition to a convincing victory.
He said good governance would be his top most priority and would be fair to all religious communities and castes, including the extremely backward classes and deprived sections.
He is expected to be elected leader of the JD (U)-BJP legislature party and likely to be sworn in on Thursday at Patna’s Gandhi Maidan.
The RJD, which had a vice-like grip on power ever since 1990, finally lost in the battle of ballots securing 54 seats and its alliance partner Congress getting nine seats, one less than last time.
The RJD had won 75 in the last elections.
CONGRESS WOES: With the Bihar assembly poll verdict turning out to be another shock after the Iraq oil-for-food scam, the Congress-led coalition’s cup of woes appeared to be full.
Though the session is expected to be stormy with the UPA facing a determined opposition charge over the Volcker committee report on Iraqi oil payoffs and its leftist allies voicing reservations over the government’s stand on the Iran nuclear issue, the first week is unlikely to witness any ruckus.
