NEW DELHI: Former prime minister V P Singh Nov 30 said that there will be seat adjustments at the all India level with the left parties and that he would prefer sharing power with them at the center if the National Front was voted back to power at the next general elections.
In an exclusive interview to PTI, Singh said the present arrangement at the center could not last long. But he said the timing of the elections depended on the owner of the government and not the manager.
The reference was to the fact that the Chandra Shekhar government is supported from the outside by Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress I.
It is basically unstable. They (Congress I) will pull the rug when they have indications that Chandra Shekhar is succeeding.
Talking of the alliance with the left, he said the Janata Dal and other front partners would have a joint election campaign and seat adjustments based on a common minimum program, but ruled ‘out mergers or a common manifesto.
I am wiser now and am scary about mergers. I am not for a merger of parties. I was an ardent one earlier. It is better to stick to your line rather than trying for a confluence of parties.
Singh said he had not discussed the issue of sharing power with the left parties but felt that now that the rightwing BJP was out of reckoning such a proposal was not ruled out.
Asked about the chances of his heading a party in case of a split in the Congress (I) as part of realignment of forces, he said it was a hypothetical question and added that now our goals are set. You can’t do bargaining. You have to develop your dynamics. If you relate it to these issues (bargaining) then all the efforts will be frittered.
He also did not visualize any truck with the BJP in future to keep the Congress (I) away or with the Congress (I) as part of secular forces coming together to isolate BJP.
In an obvious reference to Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar’s role in splitting the Janata Dal party, V P Singh said that the dissidents were given an opportunity to come to the parliamentary party for the election of a new leader. Ballot boxes were ready but the other side chose to stay away. It is not good that you split the party because you are in a minority, he added.
The Janata Dal leader said issues like Punjab, Kashmir, Assam and the Ayodhya temple mosque dispute should be kept above Partisan politics and offered his party’s cooperation to the new government in its efforts. He had already pledged the cooperation to the prime minister when he had called on him formally after he took over. Asked as to what would be the issues that would dominate the next general elections, Singh said they would be unity of the country, communal harmony, social justice and issue of change of iniquitous system.
We have set the agenda already and nobody can change it now, he said referring to his government’s decisions in various socioeconomic areas, including the implementation of the Mandal commission recommendations.
The commission had recommended additional reservation of government jobs for people of the backward castes.
The former prime minister denied that electoral gains were the reason behind the decision of reservation of 27% additional jobs for backward classes.
He said the main objective was to take an affirmative action to heIp the people belonging to the backward classes who had been deprived of their due for centuries. Affirmative action was restored to even in the United States, he added,
Singh said that no party had opposed the reservation for backward classes and there was consensus on it. But he criticised the double standards adopted by some of the parties like the BJP and the Congress (I), who he said wanted the status quo of iniquitous system to remain. He asked them to be sincere and openly say what their actual stand on the issue was.
There was unanimity in the party on the issue and those opposed to it in the party also fought on the promise of implementation of Mandal commission recommendations.
Article extracted from this publication >> December 14, 1990
