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Power equations in the winter session

The much-predicted expansion of the Union Cabinet has turned out to be a minimalist cut-and-paste job. No additions, only a few changes involving four portfolios — Information and Broadcasting, Parliamentary Affairs, Urban Development, and Water Resources. No doubt the Prime Minister had other preoccupations. The coming days will see a host of ticklish issues — from Bihar and Iran to the Volcker Committee report — test the capabilities, cohesion, and nerves of the ruling United Progressive Alliance in and outside Parliament. Of this, the challenge on the Bihar front looks the toughest. The UPA faces a poor prognosis with respect to both the Assembly election and the reasoned judgment of the Supreme Court on the dissolution of the House, which led to the election. Should Tuesday's electoral verdict place Nitish Kumar within reach of power, the knives will be out for Lalu Prasad and the Congress. As it is, the Bharatiya Janata Party is in triumphalist mode: witness its war cries over the Volcker Committee report and the threat to `rock' the winter session of the Lok Sabha. A second misadventure on Iran — New Delhi has only a couple of days to decide on its stand on a possible referral of Teheran's nuclear energy activities to the United Nations Security Council — is bound to strain the UPA Government-Left relationship at a time it is supposed to be on the mend.

The UPA regime faces no immediate threat. Unless it is provoked beyond endurance, the Left will not consider voting against the Government in Parliament. A defeat in Bihar will upset Mr. Prasad mightily but then he will need to retain his Railway Ministry all the more. Certainly, the Government will come under intense moral and political pressure once the Supreme Court spells out its reasons for holding the dissolution of the Bihar House unconstitutional. As for the Volcker Committee report, mega sound effects notwithstanding, it is the least of the Government's worries. An empowered Inquiry Authority headed by a respected judge has been set up under the Commissions of Inquiry Act to get to the bottom of the naming of K. Natwar Singh and the Congress in some tables in the report. Sonia Gandhi has unequivocally promised action against anyone found to be on the take. And all this at a time when the credibility of the Volcker exercise has been undermined by revelations that there were interpolations and additions supplied by motivated sources. Specifically, it now appears that Mr. Natwar Singh's name was interpolated in the record by a Central Intelligence Agency-run survey group. What is more, the National Democratic Alliance Government was clearly in the know of things. Petroleum Minister Ram Naik actually led a delegation of industrialists, some of whom have been listed as beneficiaries by the Volcker Committee report, to Iraq. On the other side, with less than a month left for a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-dictated leadership change to take effect, the BJP will need to put its own house in order.

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