The Sinned Against Sinha

It took L.K. Advani’s intervention to calm the situation. He rapped such public dissent. It was futile to corner a "scapegoat Sinha" as the party had already previewed its dim poll prospects in Delhi. Instead, extracting previous examples, he demanded mature reactions.

Advani’s signal was stark but the damage was done and the budget already blacklisted. Says former Delhi CM Sahib Singh Verma: "Even the business community is angry with our regime." Leaders insist that economic reforms coupled with local tinkerings like industry reallocation have ensured a reversal of public opinion. The budget only compounded the crisis and the fallout was inevitable. Explains Jagdish Shettigar, head of the BJP’s economic cell, "The strategy seems wrong. There has to be a balance between economic rationality and the capacity to communicate the ideas."

In retrospect, Sinha is no stranger to such attacks. Many of his decisions have faced criticism from outside his party and even from within. But Budget 2002-03 has irked even his most loyal supporters. Advani—the man responsible for Sinha’s induction into the BJP—has always shielded him from the assaults of the RSS and even the PMO. It was he who dissuaded the parivar patriarchs and played the bridge between Vajpayee, Sinha’s policies and the RSS during the national executive in Bangalore in 1999. But today, even he apparently stands disillusioned. Though he has never expressed his disappointment in public, he did so privately to Sinha.

Time, it seems, is running out. Nine days after the Delhi polls, on the morning of April 2, Vajpayee and Advani met to discuss the possibility of replacing the FM right after the budget session. On the same evening, they met with party president Jana Krishnamurthy who in turn had a discussion with Advani at his North Block office the next morning.

Senior BJP officials insist that Advani would actually prefer a big-bang cabinet reshuffle. Not just the FM but several inefficient ministers of state and even some cabinet ministers may be axed.

Advani had recommended a similar strategy in Bangalore in 1999 but had failed. Now, with the situation more desperate, the home minister has made it clear that voters expect performance from the NDA government and in the run-up to the 2004 general elections, it’s more significant than the party’s own agenda. In short, as a senior party official put it: "You cannot live only on slogans." Says another, "This is the interval. To overcome the failures of the first half, we must perform exceedingly well in the second."

The anti-Sinha feeling has been fomenting with the interest rate cuts, capital market upheavals and the UTI collapse that has hit the middle-class retail investor most. This budget has even coopted corporates into the Sinha-bashing brigade. Even his own North Block lieutenants may not be quite backing him. From 1998, Sinha has had five finance secretaries and two economic advisors. And incumbent Rakesh Mohan is keen to return to academia. "A number of his decisions have irked the bureaucracy. Moreover, the induction of experts into the ministry has only added to the tensions," says a finance ministry official.

His political colleagues say they abhor the arrogance of a political neophyte. "He is totally unaware of the political possibilities and is too rich to care about the middle class," says a senior editor of a Sangh mouthpiece.

Despite a brave front, the signs of panic are apparent. Sinha pleaded with Krishnamurthy and Advani to tone down the economic resolution for the Goa meeting. To that extent he’s been successful. He’s also eager to explain the fundamentals of his budget. And, of course, he’s already diluted his integrity with the partial rollback on LPG. Similarly, the MSP for wheat has been hiked by Rs 10 a quintal despite the recommendations of an expert panel. A personal finance package—replete with restoration of full tax rebate for life insurance premia, abolition of service tax on the premia and a cut in excise on petrol and diesel—is also on the cards to pacify the salaried class.

The rollbacks may well save Sinha on a party level but the exercise is yet to crystallise. But Delhi is already abuzz with a successor list that ranges from the two reformist Aruns—Shourie and Jaitley—Jaswant Singh, Murli Manohar Joshi, K.C. Pant, allies Murasoli Maran and Suresh Prabhu and even technocrats like Bimal Jalan. It’s purely in the realm of speculation, thus unworthy of a debate. But yet again, the politics of economics has found another victim.