The Hindu : Front Page : NDA is disintegrating, not UPA: Pranab

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Apr 06, 2009
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Front Page

Front Page

NDA is disintegrating, not UPA: Pranab

Special Correspondent

— Photo: Rajeev Bhatt

Pranab Mukherjee addressing the media in New Delhi on Sunday.

NEW DELHI: External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday described the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) as an arrangement for governance, and maintained that there was no rationale in the analysis that it was disintegrating since the government was still in place.

Briefing journalists here, Mr. Mukherjee said the UPA had never been a political entity as it was the name given to the coalition government at the Centre. “That UPA is still continuing as a government entity. Except for Anbumani Ramadoss and R. Velu [of the Pattali Makkal Katchi], no one has left the UPA because of seat adjustments.”

This, he contrasted with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA). The NDA had lost the Telugu Desam Party, the Trinamool Congress and the Biju Janata Dal. So, it was not the UPA that was disintegrating but the NDA, was his submission.

As for the decision of the Samajwadi Party, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Lok Jan Shakti Party (LJP) to forge a united front in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, the Minister likened it to professional football clubs made up of members from various national teams.

Seat adjustments

About his party’s decision not to go in for a national alliance, Mr. Mukherjee explained that since UPA was not a political entity there was no question of having seat adjustments at the national level.

“Most of the UPA constituents are confined to one or two States. When they do not have a national presence, how can there be a national alliance?”

Neither did he find fault with the UPA constituents going their different ways. “Why should it upset us” was his answer to a question on how much the Samajwadi Party-RJD-LJP joint front had upset Congress calculations. Various permutations and combinations are, according to him, not just commonplace but also welcome in a multi-party system.

Conceding that the Congress had failed to arrive at seat adjustments with the RJD and the LJP in Bihar like the arrangement it had in place for the 2004 elections, the Minister sought to argue that this did not necessarily mean the UPA was disintegrating. Both parties had time and again pledged their loyalty to the UPA, Mr. Mukherjee said.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Front Page