Left, Congress closing ranks?

By Harish Khare

NEW DELHI, DEC. 13. While for most of the day the Lok Sabha was sought to be polarised along the secular-communal divide, the introduction by the Finance Minister, Mr. Yashwant Sinha, of the ``bank de- nationalisation`` bill brought to the fore the deep disquiet among the political parties over the thrust of the Government's economic decisions, under the rubric of liberalisation and globalisation.

The Speaker, Mr. G.M.C. Balayogi, simply could not understand why the Opposition was making a fuss even at the introduction stage. The political and policy implications of the bill were probably not explained to the Speaker. But a determined Opposition nonetheless demanded - and got - a real counting of heads to decide whether the House was willing to permit the Minister to introduce the bill. Finally, the buttons had to be pressed, before leave was granted by 209 to 156 votes.

Mr. Basudeb Acharya of the CPI(M) was the first to put the issue in the political context, and reminded the House of the philosophy behind bank nationalisation in 1969 and what that simple step achieved in terms of empowering the poor. He was supported by others, including Mr. Chandra Shekhar, former Prime Minister, who recalled his role as a ``Young Turk'' in nudging the Congress, and Indira Gandhi towards a radical agenda in 1968- 69, golden era of the Indian politics.

On his part, Mr. Sinha tried to suggest that his proposal was for a logical extension of the process of economic reforms which began in the P.V. Narasimha Rao-Manmohan Singh era. He noted that it was in April 1994, during the Congress regime, that government equity in the nationalised banks was brought down from 100 to 51 per cent. His proposed law was based on the recommendations of the two Narasimham Committees, set up during the non-BJP regimes.

Mr. Sinha even tried to argue that as Mr. Chandra Shekhar's Finance Minister, he had initiated the process of privatisation of banks; he thereby invited a prompt correction and a slight rebuke from the veteran,who said what that Government had merely decided was to offload a percentage of the equity to government financial institutions. Mr. Sinha, in fact, had asked for it.

The Minister's invocation of his bill's policy lineage to the Congress regime left the Congress benches uncomfortable, and finally provoked a categorical intervention by the party's deputy leader, Mr. Madhavrao Scindia, who declared that it would oppose ``tooth and nail'' any attempt to dilute the public control over the banks. Mr. Scindia's intervention was greeted with thumping of desks by the entire Opposition benches. The House was unconsciously witnessing a closing of ranks between the Left and the Congress.

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