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Make 13
a Lucky Number A dosa-thin majority could do with the condiment of consensus.
True, this time the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has a somewhat more comfortable majority. Parliamentary democracy, however, is a minefield that takes more than mere numbers to negotiate. Why, even a working majority is not enough to push through, for instance, constitutional amendments that may require two-thirds support. The Rajya Sabha still remains beyond the NDA's control, and could scuttle whatever it can. The search for consensus is something of a hollow mantra in these times. In the fractured polity of the '90s, bipartisan effort was only visible in the early years of the P.V. Narasimha Rao government. Since then feckless politicians, convinced that the previous election was only a semi-final and the next one will provide that decisive mandate have made brinkmanship a parliamentary weapon. As such mid-term elections have become as much an annual feature as the monsoons. Let the 13th Lok Sabha steer a different course. At the very least, let it attempt to. Carrying the Diesel Can Let the road to rational oil prices be friction free.
The historically low level of inflation in the past six months is another reason why the government should not have postponed the diesel price hike. A gradual hike would have been less resentful and less damaging. The one-step steep hike effected now will escalate rail and truck freights and passenger fares. This will push up the overall inflation rate by at least one percentage point to about 3 per cent. This at a time when less-than-normal monsoons have already threatened to fuel vegetable and foodgrain prices. But the government had no way out of this self-inflicted crisis. The deficit on the oil-pool account (reflective of the difference between domestic and global oil prices) had shot up to Rs 10,000 crore by September-end. Even after the diesel price hike, the deficit will remain at over Rs 3,000 crore. Its elimination will require a hike in the prices of cooking gas and kerosene, which is very likely in the near future. This is an economic imperative. Hopefully, the compulsions of coalition politics will not overwhelm it. |
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 © Living Media India Ltd |
As India's new MPs congratulate
each other and gather in Delhi for the first session of the 13th Lok Sabha this month, it
may be wise for their well-wishers to present them a brief history of the previous House.
At 412 days, the 12th Lok Sabha was the shortest in Indian history. It was also
ferociously bipolar. So fine was the balance between Treasury and Opposition that it took
a single vote to defeat a motion of confidence and kill the Lok Sabha four years before
its due expiry. That will make the headlines of history. Dismissed in the fine print will
be the little details: about how a divided House achieved precious little, how the moving
of the Women's Reservation Bill led to a brawl, how a host of economic laws -- from the
Companies Bill to the Insurance Regulatory Authority Bill -- still await ratification. All
that is in the past. It will, and should, remain that way unless the members of the 13th
Lok Sabha resolve to be no different from their immediate predecessors. 
The first act of post-election governance was
long overdue. The 40 per cent hike in diesel prices announced on the night of October 5 --
48 hours after the last round of voting -- was a good measure, albeit executed
cloak-and-dagger style. Since April, international oil prices have been on an upswing. In
fact, global oil prices today are twice as high as their March 1999 levels. Yet pre-poll
populism shielded Indians from the price rise for six long months. There are two
fundamental reasons why that need not have been the case. In September 1997, the then
government had decided to remove subsidy from diesel and bring its domestic price at a par
with the global rate. Subsequently, some changes were made in the diesel price giving the
impression that it was moving towards being market-determined. But the election season put
paid to those hopes.