While Anna Hazare has won the battle of ethics against the government, can the UPA government redeem itself at all? Yes and no. Yes, if it drops P Chidambaram and Kapil Sibal for starters, and orders Digvijay Singh to zip up. And no, because whatever the UPA regime does, it cannot alter the perception that it is the most corrupt since India’s independence. Being so tainted, the regime shan’t even dare to bring a strong Lokpal law.
The consolidating opinion in the Congress party is that because of Chidambaram and Sibal’s hard line, Anna repeatedly scored against the government, and his movement became stronger by the day. Although this hard line of Chidambaram and Sibal owes to Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, who were unhappy with the initial soft handling of Ramdev by the PM and Pranab Mukherjee, the blame is nevertheless falling on the two ministers.
Chidambaram gave the impression of a strong and successful home minister who was an asset to the government. No longer. The inability to crack the 13/7 Mumbai bombings and the earlier terror attacks in Pune, Delhi and elsewhere have faded his sheen. He stands between a possible J Jayalalithaa-Congress alliance in Tamil Nadu. The Tamil Nadu chief minister is single-mindedly pursuing his court case related to his 2009 election. Plus, Subramaniam Swamy and the BJP have repeatedly dragged his name in the 2G scam.
Congress insiders say Sonia Gandhi may want to see him leave the government if only to calm the Anna camp. It is for the same reason that she may not be unhappy to have Sibal out, who has blotted his copybook with public opinion by his two-faced approach to the Anna Hazare movement. The figuring of his name in the “mad elephant” tape of Agnivesh has further angered his detractors in the Congress party, who anyhow consider him a political lightweight who has made it big as he shares the PM’s Punjab connections.
But Sibal and Chidambaram are being protected by Manmohan Singh. By next month, insiders expect a decision to be taken on both ministers. On the other hand, telling Digvijay to back off from Anna and his team is easier, but it would not make any material difference to the Congress party’s profile apropos the anti-corruption movement, which is battered beyond repair, to the advantage of the BJP.
Even if Chidambaram and Sibal go, the UPA has to battle the perception of being the most corrupt regime to date. Nearly all the hard steps in the recent mega scams have been taken by entities other than the government, including the Supreme Court, the Comptroller and Auditor General and Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee. The government, rather, appears to be impeding investigations. The 2G PAC is being torpedoed and CAG reports routinely disparaged. And it is laughable when the CBI tells the court that there is no evidence of Dayanidhi Maran coercing Aircel’s ownership change.
Moreover, the government’s witch hunt of Anna’s team is there for all to see. Intelligence Bureau harassment of Anna team members and their families is standard operating procedure for a government that has much to hide and the public is widely knowledgeable about such persecution. The government is also expected to stall the Jan Lokpal bill in Parliament or attempt to legislate a weak law, because it would be suicidal to do otherwise.
But Sonia Gandhi somehow has to reclaim lost ground from the Anna side and the BJP, because her future leadership of the Congress party, and that of her dynastic son, depend on that. The fate of the UPA in the 2014 elections (if they aren’t held earlier) will also be determined by the tough decisions she takes now, and senior Congress managers see no option
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