Behind bolder PM, party willing to take more risks

On Thursday, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told his ministerial colleagues that they were working against "the political calendar" but the task of nation-building required that they "transcend other considerations" (read election-oriented, populist considerations), his candour and boldness took many by surprise in the party and government.

But, it's the season of surprises. Who could imagine the Congress organising a public rally with all chief ministers, PCC chiefs and office-bearers from all over the country in attendance to support economic reforms, more specifically, the decision to allow FDI in retail sector? And Digvijaya Singh batting for P Chidambaram's brainchild, the National Investment Board?

During UPA I, getting a whiff of the move to allow FDI in retail, Sonia Gandhi had been quick to raise the red flag, shooting off a letter to the PM. Addressing election rallies in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat nowadays, she is not tired of talking about the virtues of the move. While Kejriwal & Co. may be well within their rights to seek credit for jolting the Congress out of slumber, there is certainly a growing realisation in the ruling party that distributing largesse in the form of subsidies, loan waivers, and social sector schemes like NREGS was helping neither it nor the country.

The attempt now is to shift the debate from negativism of corruption to positives like growth and employment, to which the aspirational India had responded in 2009. At a meeting of the Congress Core Group, after Finance Minister P Chidambaram had given a grim macro-economic picture, the party leadership gave him a go-ahead for reforms, however unpopular these may be, with the intent to re-visit the issue early next year.

The government's emphasis on investment in infrastructure sector is led not only by economic rationale but also by political calculations that it would create lakhs of new jobs and give a headstart to the Congress. Hope the party's message now reaches a couple of its activist-ministers who still seem to believe that blocking economic reforms would earn them brownie points with the Congress high command.

... contd.

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