By Liz Mathew
New Delhi, March 25 (IANS) It was keen on early general elections. But now the Congress party has concluded it will wait for the verdict in Karnataka to decide whether or not it should order a snap parliamentary poll.
After Finance Minister P. Chidamabaram announced the populist loan waiver scheme for farmers and tax cuts for the salaried class, it appeared that the Congress was all set to call for early Lok Sabha elections, otherwise due in 2009.
The Congress leadership now thinks differently, party sources told IANS.
The party wants to test the popular mood in Karnataka before wading into a general election although the feeling is that the Rs.60,000 crore ($15 billion) bonanza for small farmers and other fiscal sops are bound to brighten its electoral prospects.
Even Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who was earlier pushing for elections this year, is ready to wait for the Karnataka assembly results, the sources said.
Karnataka will see elections before May 28, when six months of President’s rule ends.
“Although a section of the party leadership felt that early general elections will benefit the UPA (Congress-led United Progressive Alliance), there are apprehensions that the budget sops and other flagship programmes are yet to make an impact,” a party leader told IANS.
Gandhi is believed to have told her senior colleagues that there were “some problems” vis-à-vis early Lok Sabha elections. She has reportedly said that many Congress state units as well as UPA allies had sought more time to get into the election mode.
A school of thought that favoured early polls had argued that the slump in the world economy and fluctuating prices of crude oil, edible oil and pulses would make it tough for the government to contain the steep prices of essential commodities that would make the government unpopular over a period of time.
They felt that the UPA should bank on the ‘feel good factor’ in the wake of the Chidambaram sops for farmers and the middle class – and now the salary hikes for central government employees.
But others in the party point out that these steps as well as the earlier UPA flagship programmes such as National Rural Employment Guarantee Act that gives a legal right for the able bodied in rural families to secure 100 days of work may not yet translate into electoral gains.
Argued a senior cabinet minister who did not want to be named: “No party can go to the polls only on the basis of a popular budget. The hype will fade in a few weeks. The issues of price rise and internal security will be the main issues for next election.”
Another Congress leader added: “The Karnataka results will give us a glimpse of what is in store for us. If we do well there, it will definitely be a boost for us.”
That thinking may well be right since the Congress, once the lord of Karnataka politics, is now facing a spirited fight from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as well as the Janata Dal-Secular.
Political analyst G.V.L. Narasimha Rao also thinks that it is not going to be an easy ride for the Congress, which has suffered terrible defeats in recent state elections including a rout in Gujarat.
“Loan waivers are unlikely to be of much help in Karnataka. Elections will happen in May, much before the deadline of June set by the central government for implementing the loan waiver scheme,” Rao told IANS.
In any case, Rao points out that the loan waivers announced by the former Janata Dal-Secular government for Karnataka’s farmers would reduce the “dramatic impact” of the central scheme.
“Rising prices of food articles and construction materials will be major issues for Karnataka voters,” he says. The Congress probably agrees.