KCR’s Front Will Work If It’s Created For A Limited Purpose: Federating India

Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao’s (KCR’s) efforts to create a new federal front suffers from the same deficiencies of the mythical third fronts of the past. Both are arithmetical impossibilities as long as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress, between them, get more than 272 seats in the Lok Sabha.

An additional problem is that logical choices for membership in a federal front turn out to be wrong choices at the regional level, as smaller parties are sometimes in alignment with national parties, and in opposition to one another. Example: Trinamool and Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) in West Bengal, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu, Telugu Desam Party and YSR Congress in Andhra, Akali Dal and Aam Aadmi Party in Punjab, Shiv Sena and Nationalist Congress Party in Maharashtra.

One reason why Mamata Banerjee was less than enthusiastic about providing instant support to KCR’s federal front proposal was her need for the Congress to fend off the BJP’s rise in West Bengal. Aligning with the CPI-M is, of course, even less thinkable.

The federal front is more attractive as an idea than as a front to rule the Centre. But the one scenario in which it can make sense is this: if its only demand is a rejigging of the Constitution where more financial powers are devolved to states, a federal front would have no problem in staying together until it passes such a law in the quickest possible time. If neither the BJP nor Congress can form a government without allies in 2019, the federal front can support either of them for achieving a limited objective: passing the constitutional amendment. It can then disband and allow its members to join any government at the Centre. In this task, it would not matter if the CPI-M and the Trinamool Congress are on the same side, since the purpose is limited and not about running a government of incompatibles for five years.

If the BJP happens to be the single largest party in 2019, it should offer this deal to a federal front – or to a front of regional parties – to remain in power in Delhi.

Once Delhi’s key role is reduced to areas like defence, foreign affairs, macroeconomy, currency and banking, and communications, the unseemly jockeying for the proverbial ATM ministries – which allowed the DMK to milk the telecom sector for what it was worth in United Progressive Alliance (UPA) I and II – will end.

The BJP should do this even if it gets a majority in the Lok Sabha in 2019, though that seems unlikely at this point in time.

Reason: The central government faces anti-incumbency primarily because we expect it to deliver on all fronts. With devolved power, it will no longer be possible for Party A in State X to pretend that job creation is Narendra Modi’s job alone. Or Rahul Gandhi’s for that matter, if he manages to pip the BJP in 2019 – a distant possibility as things stand now.

A bonus for the BJP – but not the Congress – from remitting power back to the states is this: the Lutyens media mafia will essentially get disbanded, for there will be no patronage culture left to continue a parasitical existence. As the udders of the central nanny state run dry, the parasites have to depend on state capitals for their evening Scotch, or trips to various conferences abroad. They will get no free lunch. Foreign money will evaporate, as Delhi’s powers get dissipated.

As things stand, the BJP has more to gain than the Congress from a more federated India, for the media mafia feeds largely at the Congress trough.