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Storm clouds over budget session

Twenty months after the United Progressive Alliance came to power at the Centre, not much remains of the euphoria that attended that famous victory. The Manmohan Singh Government's first budget was passed amid unpleasant disruptions by the Bharatiya Janata Party. The principal Opposition party was seen as churlish in obstructing a new government. The Prime Minister came across as transparent, sincere, and willing to give his all to a coalition experiment whose success hinged on evolving a consensus — within the Government, and among the Congress, other constituents of the alliance, and those offering support from outside. Today storm clouds have gathered over a regime returning to Parliament for the budget session. The issues and terms of engagement have changed, the euphoria is gone. The UPA regime is on test, principally over relations with the United States, the challenge to it coming less from the BJP than from those who have a stake in its survival. Just how much trouble the UPA Government faces will depend on how it handles the tricky issues of Indo-U.S. civilian nuclear cooperation and Iran's referral to the United Nations Security Council. On both issues, the Prime Minister will be called upon to demonstrate the independence of his foreign policy — a difficult task considering he comes to Parliament well after committing his Government to a nuclear deal with the U.S. that clearly compromises India's freedom of action in the international arena as well as the autonomy of its nuclear energy programme.

The vulnerability of the Government is made worse by the fact that the budget session coincides with President Bush's visit. On the one side is a compulsion to show results to a head of state whom the Government has gone out on a limb to woo. On the other is intense domestic pressure over the same issues. At the core of the problem is the unilateralist style of the Congress and this Government. If the party seemed oblivious to the graces and courtesies involved in heading an alliance crucially dependent on outside support, the Prime Minister's Office has behaved as if it had an independent mandate in the fields of economic policy and foreign affairs. The differences with the Left parties are there for everyone to see; there is disquiet among some other allies; and on certain aspects of economic and foreign policy there has been dissonance within the Congress. Matters have not reached a stage where any of the supporting parties are likely to endanger the life of the minority regime. But the Left parties have cautioned the Government against taking them for granted, and announced their intention to work with "like-minded parties" on specific issues of common concern. The National Common Minimum Programme is a covenant the Congress forged with its allies in 2004. Prime Minister Singh would do well to study it carefully in the changed circumstances — and stay with it. If he does this, he can recover lost ground.

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