COMMENTARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ELECTIONS
ARCHIVES

Surjeet emerges king-maker yet again

George Iype in New Delhi

As Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee awaits his crucial test of survival next week, the hub of all political activity in the capital is neither the Bharatiya Janata Party office at 11, Ashoka Road nor the Congress headquarters at 14, Akbar Road.

Opposition leaders of different hues these days are closeted at 8, Teen Murti Lane, with the most astute kingmaker in present-day Indian politics -- Communist Party of India-Marxist general secretary Harkishen Singh Surjeet.

In 1996, he cobbled together the United Front government and anointed two prime ministers -- H D Deve Gowda and Inder Kumar Gujral. But nearly 17 months after the collapse of the UF coalition, Surjeet -- 80 plus and suffering from ill-health -- is hard at work once again, knitting together what comes to him naturally, a non-Bharatiya Janata Party coalition at the Centre.

In the past week, more than a hundred politicians have called on him at his spartan bungalow. Congress president Sonia Gandhi drives to his home for political counsel. So does All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief J Jayalalitha's emissary Dr Subramanian Swamy, Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav and Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Laloo Prasad Yadav.

All of them have just one request to the grand old man of Indian politics: give shape to a new coalition if and when the Vajpayee government falls next week.

"I work hard even at this age to build a new coalition because I am a secularist and I want to save the country from BJP rule," the CPI-M boss states, predicting that his plan for a fresh coalition will be in place by the end of next week.

"I have met 15 Congress leaders today. All of them are now seriously talking about a government that could be led by the Congress and headed by Sonia Gandhi," Surjeet bares his strategy.

He says he has been "convinced" in the last two years that only a Third Force coalition, with the Congress playing the pivotal role, can actively challenge the rise of the BJP in India.

But in the past two years, he has also been engaged in convincing his conservative Communist colleagues about the need to do business with the Congress. Initially, the CPI-M general secretary's proposal -- now generally known as 'the Surjeet thesis' -- drew flak from his own colleagues.

However, as he now maneuvers to put together the Third Force and the Congress, Surjeet is happy that his fellow Communists are solidly behind him. The ardent supporter of the Surjeet thesis now a days is West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu.

Thus, many in his own party now regard Surjeet as the architect of the new CPI-M. "Surjeet has single-handedly convinced Sonia Gandhi that the Congress should join hands with the third alternative to dislodge the BJP government," a CPI-M Politburo member says.

According to him, Surjeet will be remembered for "this radical shift" that he has effected in the CPI-M in changing national politics in the country. "He has attuned the CPI-M to the changing times. And he is the only CPI-M leader who calls on Sonia Gandhi often at 10, Janpath," he added.

Visionary of the new CPI-M, Surjeet took over as the party general secretary for the third consecutive term at the next party Congress in Calcutta in October 1998.

He was first elected as the CPI-M general secretary when the veteran Communist leader E M S Namboodiripad voluntarily gave up office in 1992.

But ask Surjeet how different are his strategies now from 1996 in piecing together a coalition at the Centre, the CPI-M chief waxes eloquent.

"I proved in 1996 that India is in for only coalition governments at the Centre. But when we formed the UF government then, I never expected it to last for five years," he discloses.

But Surjeet hastily points out that "it was a churning point in the Indian politics." "More than a dozen regional political parties and the Left Front coming together to form a government with the support of the biggest political party, the Congress, was a turning point in Indian history," he states.

"But the collapse of the UF coalition has taught us, me particularly, new lessons in coalition politics. Therefore, my strategy this time will be quite different," he outlines.

As politicians eagerly wait for the denouement of the Jayalalitha-sponsored crisis, Surjeet is carrying on his ageing shoulders a number of burdens. One, he is yet to fully convince Sonia that the Congress should lead the next coalition, with herself taking up the prime minister's post.

Sonia dreads that once she is made the prime minister, her fortunes would suffer hugely as it happened to former coalition prime ministers like Morarji Desai, Charan Singh, V P Singh, Chandra Shekhar, H D Deve Gowda and I K Gujral.

On Monday, Surjeet will meet the AIADMK chief to explain to her that her support to an alternative government should be unconditional. Many in the Congress and the Left feel only Surjeet can talk bluntly to temperamental leaders like Jayalalitha and unwilling partners like Sonia.

Third, Surjeet's biggest headache is to convince both Mulayam and Laloo Yadav that installation of Sonia as prime minister is the only solution to end the present crisis. Both the Yadavs have been on a collision course with Sonia as they believe that any friendship with the Congress will hurt their parties's interests in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

That is not all. Since Opposition leaders now know that any coalition would not have more than six months shelf-life, Surjeet has also to convince them of his survival plans for the new government.

But Surjeet is confident that the new government, whatever shape it arrives in, will last. "My plan now is for an enduring coalition. And you will see it by the end of next week," promises the CPI-M boss.

Tell us what you think of this report