NCP has long way to go achieve `main secular space'

NCP has long way to go achieve `main secular space'
NEERJA CHOWDHURY

NAGPUR, OCT 2: The sixteen-month-ten-day-old Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) is positioning itself like the Janata Dal of yesteryears, a national party, with secular credentials, a pan Indian profile, if not an all India presence, which could become the centrepiece of an anti-BJP, non-Congress formation in the future. That was the political message of its two-day national convention held here on the lines of a Congress plenary. But it was clear that it has a long way to go to attain its objective.

The party distanced itself from both the Congress and the BJP, claiming that it was aiming to occupy the ``main secular space'' in the country, with the BJP on the decline and the crisis of ``leadership'', ``identity'', and ``ideology'' in the Congress.

Party general secretary P.A. Sangma made an appeal to Congressmen and former Congressmen to join the NCP -- ``Whether we like it or not, since the NDA is not working, and the main Opposition, the Congress, is not working, the situation will automatically lead to the realignment of forces and the emergence of a third force.'' Projecting Pawar as a future prime minister, Sangma said all those who had quit the Congress had gone on to become prime ministers, whether it was Morarji Desai, V.P. Singh, Chandra Shekhar, H.D. Deve Gowda or I.K. Gujral.

One of the noticeable features of the Nagpur convention was Sangma's ``re-identification'' with the NCP. Since he became a member of the NDA-constituted Commission to review the Constitution, and the NCP legislators in Meghalaya joined the Government of which the BJP was a part, there was speculation in political circles that Sangma may, in time, come to join the BJP. ``There is no question of Sangma joining the BJP even in his dreams,'' said the former Speaker of the Lok Sabha. ``I'm with the NCP and will remain with the NCP.'' The party too gave a new twist to why Sangma joined the Commission -- as a ``guarantee'' against any attempt by the NDA to tamper with the basic structure of the Constitution.

On the face of it, the harshness of NCP's criticism of the Congress in the party's political resolution, and in the speeches of party president Pawar, re-elected for a second term, raised question marks on the stability of the Congress-NCP government in Mumbai. But they also reflected the new politics of a coalition era, which has compounded contradictions.

The NCP is a partner in government with the Congress, from which it broke away last year. But at the same time, it is compelled to criticise the party stridently in order to take over the ground occupied by the Congress in the state, and outside it, for its survival. While the situation made for a first-rate conflict, the Congress and the NCP have to lump each other to keep the Shiv Sena and the BJP at bay, at any rate for the time being.

Time and again, Pawar reiterated that the NCP's alliance with the Congress was born out of a ``mutual need'' and not a ``desire''.

While Messrs Pawar, Sangma, Tariq Anwar, Devendra Dwivedy and a host of other speakers let fly at the Congress, the ``official'' part of the NCP was restrained. Chagan Bhujbal, Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra, who represents the NCP in the Government, did not utter a word throughout the two-day proceedings, neither at the Working Committee meet nor at the open sessions. While Datta Meghe, another Minister in the Government, spoke but he confined himself to making a case for a separate state of Vidarbha.

The strongest thing going for the NCP today is its national party status. With the derecognition of the CPM by the Election Commission, the NCP is the only other party, besides the BJP and the Congress, which is recognised as a national party and is a partner in governments in Maharashtra, Kerala, Meghalaya and Manipur.

The party's gameplan, as it emerged at Nagpur, is to strengthen its base in Maharashtra in readiness for elections, given the fragile nature of the government here, and concentrate its energies on UP, where elections are due in a year's time. Pawar said the party would be identifying the constituencies where it would field its candidates in the country's largest state. He would be undertaking an intensive tour of UP soon. The party, which had an alliance with Mulayam Singh Yadav in Maharashtra, could also turn out to be a bridge between Ajit Singh's Lok Dal and the SP in UP,depending on the comparative strengths of the three groups a year down the line.

The NCP, Pawar said, was talking to Ajit Singh's Lok Dal and Deve Gowda's Janata Dal with a view to holding a ``joint campaign on issues'' with them to begin with. He was soft towards the Left, saying that the party had to be ``cautious'' about what Mamata Banerjee was doing in West Bengal. First, she had demanded the use of Article 356, and when the Government did not accede to her demand, she resigned on the issue of hike in petroleum prices. The NCP is closely monitoring the fast-changing developments in West Bengal, and Sangma disclosed that Mamata has already held a round of talks with him.

The interesting part of the NCP document was its economic resolution in which the party tried to strike a middle path. ``I am not against liberalisation nor saying, withdraw from the WTO,'' said Pawar. ``But from April 2001, 350 items will be available in India under the WTO, which would hurt the Indian producers. There are provisions (under the WTO) which can protect the domestic industry but the Government has not acted on them,'' Pawar said. He defended the idea of ``swadeshi'', not in the way the Swadeshi Jagran Manch was going about it, but to protect the producer in industry, agriculture and in the small scale sector.