Tugs at the Top

With renewed talk of a rift between Manmohan Singh and Pranab Mukherjee, Congress circles are abuzz with balance-of-power whispers.

Few in the Congress seriously believed it would, or could, really happen. Yet, most in the party have started waking up to find that it has actually happened—the differences between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee are fast assuming the proportion of a cold war within the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government. The silent feud, stoked by personal rivalries and vastly different visions of governance, has gained so much momentum that Manmohan Singh and Pranab Mukherjee are no longer one on several major issues, according to sources watching developments from close quarters.

Of late, the relationship between the two Congress leaders has undergone a remarkable change. During Manmohan Singh’s first term as PM, Pranab Mukherjee had been the UPA Government’s crisis manager-in-chief, but during its second term in office, the two have been at odds right from the start. Pranab Mukherjee, to begin with, was not the preferred choice of Manmohan Singh—who was reportedly keen on Montek Singh Ahluwalia—as Finance Minister. It was the Congress High Command that threw its weight behind Pranab Mukherjee when the Cabinet was being constituted earlier this summer, leaving Montek Singh Ahluwalia where he was—in the Planning Commission. The PM did have his reservations about this, say sources, but had little choice but to accept the party’s decision.

The divergence in views is wide ranging. Take foreign policy. The two are presently at opposite ends of a furious debate over the Indo-Pak joint statement issued at Sharm el-Sheikh, confide sources. Pranab Mukherjee, who was External Affairs Minister when the Government had bracketed the Indo-Pak dialogue with action taken by Pakistan against terror after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks last year, is said to be extremely unhappy with the joint statement’s de-bracketing of terror and dialogue, as also with the unprecedented mention of Balochistan. If sources are to be trusted, neither of the two contentious portions in the statement was there in the initial draft that was shown to him before it was signed by the Indian PM and his Pakistani counterpart.

Pranab Mukherjee is said to have registered his unhappiness with the Indo-Pak joint statement at the Congress core group meeting held on 24 July. This was a meeting attended by Congress President Sonia Gandhi, her political secretary Ahmed Patel, Home Minister P Chidambaram and Defence Minister AK Antony, apart from the PM and FM, and had been called to work out a compromise formula between the party and the government. While there have been public utterances made by Congressmen expressing confidence in the PM’s parliamentary clarifications, there has been a growing sense among a large section of the Congress that while granting leeway to his Pakistani counterpart Yusuf Raza Gilani, the PM lost sight of the political imperative of Maharashtra’s Assembly polls.

The Indo-Pak joint statement, however, is not the only flashpoint in the turbulent relationship between the two top leaders of the UPA Government. Pranab Mukherjee was also piqued at being kept out of the PM’s power lunch hosted in honour of visiting US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Among those who attended the lunch were Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi, Union ministers SM Krishna and Anand Sharma, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia, National Security Advisor MK Narayanan, Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon and the PM’s Principal Secretary Kutty Nair.

According to sources, Pranab Mukherjee received no invitation despite the economy being high on the agenda of Hillary Clinton’s India visit; so strongly was the FM expecting a one-to-one meeting with America’s top diplomat that he opted out of Mamata Banerjee’s public rally in Kolkata (a massive show of the Congress ally’s strength on 21 July), arguing that he would have to be in Delhi for a Hillary Clinton engagement.

This is the very Pranab Mukherjee who had done all the firefighting for Manmohan Singh when the previous UPA regime was struggling to salvage the Indo-US civilian nuclear agreement. At one point, when the Left parties’ opposition to it was at its fiercest, Pranab Mukherjee had even visited the US to request Washington DC not to fast-track the deal in view of domestic compulsions in India.

And all this despite the fact that Pranab Mukherjee—even as he was pressed into service to sell the nuclear deal to crucial Left allies on behalf of the UPA Government—had subtle differences with Manmohan Singh on the way it should be pushed through. Pranab Mukherjee was reportedly never in support of clinching the deal without taking the Left along, as he considered the communists long-term allies of the Congress. The differences, at one point of time, had even become public when Pranab Mukherjee expressed serious doubt over the fate of the deal. But as Sonia Gandhi was standing firmly with Manmohan Singh, Pranab Mukherjee followed the PM’s line without any fuss.

Perhaps the sharpest differences between Manmohan Singh and Pranab Mukherjee relate to economic policy. In fact, observers say that it was the Union Budget for 2009-10 that set the tone for the exchange of cold vibes between the two. Sources say that the PM was clearly upset by the FM not paying his views adequate attention whilst preparing the current Budget. For the PM, this was in shocking contrast with his experience with P Chidambaram as FM under the previous UPA regime. As sources narrate the rift, the new FM this year flouted standard practice in failing to consult the Prime Minister’s Office the way Chidambaram diligently used to. Pranab Mukherjee, instead, preferred to take his diktats directly from the party leadership on budget preparation. It is said the PM is not entirely pleased with his FM’s ‘Aam Aadmi budget’, as it has been popularly called.

Such misgivings, add sources, within the ruling party have meant that Sonia Gandhi has to act as the balancing factor between the dispensation’s top two leaders. Although the Congress President is thought to be tilted in favour of the PM on most matters of governance and policy—even otherwise, she has reportedly always been wary of old-timer Pranab Mukherjee—party insiders see him at a relative disadvantage on matters of political instinct and electoral strategy. Here, the FM seems to have played on the High Command’s doubts vis-à-vis the PM quite well.

Insiders believe that Pranab Mukherjee has been able to sustain his antagonistic position primarily because he has meticulously aligned himself with the rising political aspirations of the party. On every point of difference with the PM, his stand has always been in sync with the party’s views in aggregate—whether economic or foreign policy. Many in the party also feel that the FM has successfully crafted an image for himself that allows him his postures. Pranab Mukherjee is seen as a social democrat, firmly rooted in a Nehruvian past, in contrast to Manmohan Singh, who is considered a man of reforms, more interested in liberalisation and privatisation, and giving a pro-US tilt to India’s foreign and strategic policies, than keeping the Nehruvian policy framework alive.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the bank nationalisation that was extolled by Sonia Gandhi during the Congress campaign for the 2009 general election found a word-by-word echo in Pranab Mukherjee’s Budget speech in Parliament.

It is, however, premature to think that this cold war would ever develop into a full-blown battle, with the High Command determined to prevent that from happening.

In all likelihood, the chink in the Congress’s armour that is visible over the Indo-Pak joint statement will quickly be plastered over. But the tension within would continue—until Rahul Gandhi is ready to take charge.

balanceCongressManmohan SinghpowerPranab MukherjeePrime Minister