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Congress in two minds on SP, RJD

NEW DELHI: The process of forming the next government has begun in right earnest with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh submitting his resignation along with that of the Council of Ministers on Monday. President Pratibha Patil accepted the resignation and asked Dr. Singh and his ministerial colleagues to continue in office till the next government is in place.

Dr. Singh went to the Rashtrapati Bhavan after the Cabinet met in the morning to recommend the dissolution of the 14th Lok Sabha. The dissolution order was signed by the President later in the day.

Dr. Singh is set to be elected leader of the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) on Tuesday. The meeting will also see the newly elected legislators elect Congress president Sonia Gandhi as CPP chairperson.

Despite being in a comfortable position, the Congress is grappling with the issue of whether or not to take estranged allies — the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) — into the government. What is bothering some leaders is the precarious position of the Congress and its pre-poll allies in the Rajya Sabha. Without the SP and the RJD, the Congress and its pre-poll allies are way short of the halfway mark in the Upper House.

Angry statements from SP leader Mulayam Singh and RJD president Lalu Prasad have only added to the Congress discomfort as it plunged into the nitty-gritty of government formation. While both parties had offered support — Mr. Prasad’s was “unconditional” — hostile voices from the Congress saw both the leaders harden their positions, resulting in back-room efforts to mend fences.

However, for now the official line remains that only pre-poll alliance partners have been invited to the meeting of the United Progressive Alliance on Wednesday.

Briefing reporters, Congress media chairperson Janardan Dwivedi said the party along with its pre-poll alliance partners would decide the course of action.

Given the Congress pre-occupation with how to work around the problem of numbers in the Rajya Sabha, not much thinking has gone into the Cabinet formation as yet, though a rough formula has been evolved on dividing ministerial berths among the allies. For now, the formula is one Cabinet berth and one Minister of State for every nine members a party has in Parliament.

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