But the win-win scenario is not free from blemish. During November 1998 to May 1999, edible oil imports soared to 1.8 million tonnes, up from 570,000 tonnes in the corresponding period of 1997-98. This was triggered by the fall in domestic oilseed output in 1997-98 and accelerated by a cut in import duty on edible oils to 15 per cent. The oil lobby was happy, but not the oilseed lobby, thwarted by oilseed import duty held at 40 per cent. The mega imports have depressed the domestic price of palmolein to a 20-year low. And imports of a half million tonnes are said to be in the pipeline. Meanwhile, prices overseas (of both palmolein and soya oil) fell from $600-plus per tonne to $410. Edible oil importers are said to be defaulting on payments. So the idea is being floated that the government should bail out importers by siphoning out oil surplus into a buffer stock. Slack oil prices will mean a fall in the farmer's realisations from the coming oilseed harvest, which is likely to be a bumper.Farmers will face distress in large tracts of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Rural discontent in the Hindi heartland will be bad news for the government.

Free sale of imported sugar has irked the domestic sugar industry, which traditionally bankrolls political parties, because this has weakened realisations from free sale of domestic sugar. And domestic wheat from Punjab and Haryana finds no takers in the south which has contracted 500,000 tonnes of wheat imports because these are $35 per tonne cheaper than Indian wheat. The farm lobby of the north may have been appeased by procurement at a lavish price. But the south (and the west) view with askance the domestic pricing of wheat. Imports to win voters' hearts are a double-edged weapon.