New Delhi, May 16
When the partners of the new Congress-led coalition get down to drafting a common minimum programme (CMP), its representatives will have to negotiate a host of contentious issues.
There will be no differences over issues like giving top priority to agriculture and rolling back on the “saffronisation” of education but there are areas which will have to be handled with kid gloves.
Topping the list, is the volatile issue of disinvestment, POTA, the use of Article 356, food subsidies and labour laws. DMK chief M. Karunanidhi, who met the Congress president today to pledge formal support to the new coalition, has already demanded that POTA be scrapped.
Given the opposition of the Left parties to disinvestment and the Congress’ own position on it, writers of the CMP will be required to take a nuanced stance on it. The CMP could endorse the Left parties’ suggestion regarding the disbanding of the Disinvestment Ministry but, as a Congress source put it, “The nomenclature might change but the process will go on.”
The Congress is now drawing a distinction between privatisation and disinvestment and core and non-core areas. Party strategists maintain that the Congress prefers disinvestment but not privatisation in strategic areas. It has also been opposed to the disinvestment of profit-making public sector undertakings.
The CMP drawn up by the United Front government in 1996, being used as the base paper of the new document, had favoured the establishment of a disinvestment commission while stating that the “question of withdrawing the public sector from non-core and non-strategic areas will be carefully examined.”
The CMP will also have to take a view on the sensitive issue of POTA. The Congress had opposed
the Bill when it came up for passage in Parliament but it might find it difficult to scrap it as it could invite the charge of compromising with national security. There is a suggestion that the law could be amended to do away with the draconian provisions.
The new coalition will also have to evolve a consensus on the contentious issue of the “scope and misuse of Article 356” regarding the promulgation of President’s rule in a state. The Left parties are strong advocates of federalism and have always opposed Article 356 while partners like the DMK can be expected to push for the dismissal of the Jayalalithaa government. The CMP will have to strike a balance between the two positions.
The extent to which the state should go in for food subsidies and the scope of labour reforms are the other issues on which a compromise will have to be found between pro-reforms and the “Left-of Centre” lobbies in the new coalition.
