May 10, 1999

Why did the Congress veto Jyoti Basu?
The dialectical strategies of the Red Baron of Bengal. Basu's Samajwadi Party guest at the dinner in Room 201 of the Oberoi. When Pawar's banter was mistaken for backing. The double game with 10 Janpath. As Chaterjee leaked stories to the press, Congress veterans flew off the handle.

On the night of April 23, well after Mulayam had indicated his veto of Sonia to the President, a dinner was organised in Room 201 of Delhi's Oberoi Hotel. The host was a Bengali businessman with joint-venture mining interests and the chief guest was West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu. Also present were Basu's son Chandan, CPI(M) MP Somnath Chatterjee and SP General Secretary Amar Singh, whose origins are in Calcutta. The agenda was curious: the installation of the first Marxist prime minister, as demanded by Mulayam.

As a first step, Chatterjee rang select reporters in Calcutta with a sensational scoop: the CPI(M) was now agreeable to Basu becoming prime minister and a meeting to this effect was being scheduled the next morning. Second, Congress MP Kamal Nath, an old friend of Basu, was invited for the "onward transmission" of two messages to 10 Janpath -- that Mulayam would support Basu and no one else and that if the Congress agreed, the CPI(M) would be persuaded to fall in line. Subsequently, a call was made to Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu to enlist his support.

Chatterjee was not speaking out of turn. When he arrived in Delhi on April 17, Pawar visited Basu in Banga Bhavan. "So, when are you becoming prime minister?" the veteran communist asked. "Jyotida," replied the Maratha war horse, "when seniors like you are in the queue, how can I hope to occupy the chair?" It was light-hearted banter but Basu interpreted it as a Congress overture. Actually, it was what he wanted to hear, a feeling that also struck Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy when he visited Basu in Calcutta in early April. Swamy reported to Jayalalitha and 10 Janpath his two impressions: that Basu was keen on the job if Sonia was unwilling or unable; and the chief minister's hunch that Mulayam may not support a Congress government.

Throughout, Basu appears to have followed a twin-track approach. At one level he, like Surjeet, sold the idea of a Sonia government. Simultaneously, and unlike Surjeet, he tacitly encouraged roadblocks in the path of Sonia without promoting his case. Therefore, even as the CPI(M) Politburo reaffirmed its outside support to a Congress government, the majority indicated their willingness to change the party line if the Congress gave a green signal. Only Kerala dissented.

Sonia consulted 52 MPs and even held an informal CWC meeting to debate the Basu option. Unfortunately for the CPI(M), the Congress was in no mood to oblige. From Pawar and Madhavrao Scindia to K. Karunakaran and Vijayabhaskara Reddy, it was a categorical no. Sonia conveyed this to the President on April 25 leaving a spurned CPI(M) to denounce the Congress for lacking "adequate concern" in fighting communalism. A true case of sour grapes.

Why did the BJP-led government lose?
Why did Mayawati switch at the last minute?
Why did Sonia claim support of 272 MPs?
Why did Mulayam say no to the Congress?
Why was Vajpayee not invited again?

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