(In a lighter vein)

Indian politics turned nuclear with the withdrawal of support to the United Progressive Alliance government by the left front. Outside support has always been viewed with suspicion in Indian politics. That the left front supported the UPA government for four and a half years is a matter of surprise to many a political observer. Outside support is not something that is supposed to remain there for that long. It is something that is supposed to be pulled away at the slightest provocation!

Clearly, the honeymoon between the Congress and the left front was coming to a close. And, it seemed that the left may be left and the right may be right and yet the twain may meet after all.

This confidence vote brought a few interesting facts to the fore. For the first time, India saw the leftists from Kerala and the leftists from Bengal speaking in different tongues. The left front turned bilingual. Thanks to the nuclear deal.

I think there was a typographical error in some Communist Party of India (Marxist) office. The typist seems to have transposed the first two letters of the word ‘Nuclear’ making the ‘Nuclear Deal’ an ‘Unclear Deal” for them. That is what made the deal unclear to them and set them on the misinformation campaign on the nuclear deal. When they realize their mistake, they may curse themselves for climbing on to the wrong rocket and firing away full blast! God save the job of the typist.

It also kicked up a row regarding the position of the speaker of the Lok Sabha (upper house of parliament). Prakash Karat insisted that the Speaker cannot speak. Not without the permission of the party. To speak or not to speak, that became the big question. And, the speaker (Somnath Chatterjee) proved that it is his prerogative to decide whether he should be the Speaker for the confidence vote or not.

These incidents removed the camouflage over the CPM and exposed the chinks in its armour.

The nuclear issue is not something new. It has been there for years. To be fair to the left front, I must admit that it has been consistent in its opposition to the nuclear deal from the very beginning. It toned down its opposition only once when it was caught on the wrong foot during its misadventure at Nandigram!

That done, what was the hurry for MMS read Man Mohan Singh (some even call him SMS short for Sardar Manmohan Singh) to rush to the floor of the house with the proposal for a trust vote? He should have waited for the opposition to bring in a no-confidence motion. UPA government could have continued as a minority government until some adventurous opposition party brought in a no confidence motion.

The Bharatiya Janata Party was not entirely opposed to the nuclear deal or the N-deal as we call it. The fear that the muhoort (auspicious time) for their Prime Minister-in-waiting may be missed made them train their guns on the government. Some political observers believe that Advani was so obsessed with prime minister’s post that he was scheming to become the prime minister even when his colleague Vajpayee was on the saddle.

More recently, when Advani saw a son rising from the west, he got himself declared as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate lest somebody else takes that slot. So, what started as a vote on the nuclear deal changed track and turned into a vote on the performance of the government during the last four-and-a-half years.

That is not the only twist this confidence vote took. In fact, the N-deal turned into an M-deal when Mayawati jumped into the fray. A group of parties that was opposed to the Congress and the BJP tried to put together a third front again.

Mayawati saw in this a great opportunity. She declared her one-point programme was to bring down the government. What she did not tell everyone was that she was hiding another one-point programme behind this one-point programme. But, her supporters were quick to do that for her. They projected her as the prime minister if the government falls.

That must have given anxious moments to Advani because he was coaxing himself into believing that the post of the prime minister is cut out for him. That must have given anxious moments to a cross-section of political leaders who nurtured such a secret desire in their minds. Chandra Babu Naidu and Laloo Prasad Yadav made no secret of their prime ministerial aspirations. After years of anxiety over suitable prime ministerial candidates, we can now rest assured that there is no dearth of prime ministerial candidates in this country.

In the charges and counter charges that were traded freely between the treasury benches and the opposition benches, the nuclear deal was the casualty.

In the commotion, Rahul Gandhi narrated the story of Kalawati, a poor dalit woman from Vidarbha. Some Bahujan Samaj Party member flared up and objected to it. Somebody told me later that the member was hard of hearing and that he had mistaken the name Kalawati for Mayawati!

Out of all the political leaders, Ajit Singh takes the cake for horse trading. He was with the UPA when the countdown for the confidence vote began. A decision to name the Lucknow airport after his father had been taken suddenly after it hung fire for a long time. Then he remembered that the elections were round the corner and that it might be more fruitful to align with Mayawati. After that somebody told him that the UPA government may win the trust vote after all. Again he was in two minds. After all this, who needs to check Ajit Singh’s credentials as a compulsive party hopper!

I am neither in favour of the UPA nor in favour of the BJP. I am neither in favour of the CPM nor in favour of the BSP. Nor am I in favour of the Samajwadi Party. If there is one thing I am in favour of, it is the confidence vote. I think we should have this exercise more often.

See what the confidence vote did to the nation. Sethu Samudram, Lucknow Airport, redrawing the border of Tripura—all these matters were gathering dust in government files and were lost in the red tape for some time now. But, the moment the confidence vote was announced, the files gained momentum and found instant solutions. If we have confidence votes more frequently more pending matters would get cleared fast. This is the greatest performance I have seen of the UPA government in the last four and a half years!

As far as horse trading is concerned, I hold a very different view. I think horse trading and stable government go hand-in-hand. They are made for each other. The horse and the stable, I mean! So, horse trading should be encouraged to form a stable government.

The three BJP members waving one crore rupees in thousand rupee notes in the well of the house was one of the high points of the confidence vote. There were several jokes doing the rounds in the city after the confidence vote. Here is the most interesting one that I came across.

According to this joke, the three BJP members went riding the horse when they received the offer. They thought they would be richer by 25 crore by the time the confidence vote is through. But, when they got there, they realized they were getting only three crore each because the government already had the numbers. They felt cheated but they thought something was better than nothing if they get the money.

Then came the second shock. They were not getting the money then and there. What about some advance? Okay, they would get one crore as advance and get the balance after the trust vote. They realized that they were getting into something that didn’t really work in their favour. They waited for the advance. It did arrive.

That was the third shock for them. Not one crore for each. Just one crore for all three of them! That was too much. They were already being treated like dirt even before the trust vote. What was the guarantee that they would get the balance amount after the trust vote? They got pissed off and spilled the beans!

Some people were also surprised by the role of the Akali Dal members in the trust vote. Only one member swerved. Prakash Singh Badal had clearly spelt out that he would not issue a whip. Didn’t the others get the message?!

There was another word that was being mentioned over and over again—‘poaching!’ While everybody was busy accusing the Congress and the Samajwadi party of poaching and horse-trading, there was another poacher in the urban jungle—Mayawati! But, in all the unprecedented commotion, she got stashed away in the background.

She entered the scene with a bang. And, she vanished into thin air after the confidence vote. That is Maya magic for you!

This confidence vote started on a nuclear note. It lost nuclear fuel somewhere along the way. What a nuclear joke? In the end, who had the nuclear laugh?!