Congress readies for gridlock after Bihar vote

Nitish Kumar will be sworn in as chief minister of Bihar on Thursday in a ceremony that heralds a fresh start for India's poorest and worst-administered state, but also a new set of headaches for the Congress-led government in New Delhi.

“People voted against misgovernance,” Mr Kumar said on Wednesday, promising to “destroy the myth that there can be no governance in Bihar” and to help its 82m inhabitants make India once again “feel proud of the state”.

Tuesday's crushing defeat of Laloo Yadav, a key member of the ruling coalition and ruler of Bihar for the last 15 years, cast a pall over the re-opening of parliament on Wednesday, with the session adjourned after a brief homage to the country's recently-deceased former president, K.R. Narayanan.

Analysts say that defeats in state elections tend to make governments more nervous about advancing bold legislative agendas and that the weakening of Mr Yadav, who remains railways minister, will increase the bargaining power of the government's Communist backers.

The government's cautious legislative plans for the winter session illustrate the gridlock that has befallen the coalition's plans for economic reform, with little on the horizon in terms of planned privatisations or labour market reforms to boost the spirits of investors.

The cabinet last week shied away from approving a sweeping liberalisation of foreign direct investment rules proposed by the Commerce Ministry but opposed by the Left Bloc and sections within Congress, sending it back to committee for further review.

Sanjaya Baru, media adviser to Manmohan Singh, prime minister, who has yet to offer any reaction to the end of the “Laloo Raj” other than to give reporters an ambiguous smile, on Wednesday said he did not know details of business planned for the session.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunshi, however, says a planned amendment to a bill preventing “insults to national honour” and a bill on disaster management will be among the legislative highlights of the forthcoming session.

The low-key agenda reflects mounting pressure on Sonia Gandhi, chairperson of the ruling United Progressive Alliance, following the coalition's crushing defeat in Bihar and allegations of corruption in the Congress party related to the oil-for-food programme.

The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata opposition party, triumphant over the party's first big regional win since losing power at the centre last year, has called for a parliamentary discussion on the Volcker Report into abuses of the UN programme.

The report has already claimed the scalp of foreign minister K. Natwar Singh, recently demoted to minister without portfolio pending inquiries into the report's finding that he and the Congress party paid kickbacks to gain lucrative oil contracts with Iraq.

“Government will have neither high blood pressure nor low blood pressure,” Mr Dasmunshi said, referring to the BJP's planned offensive on the issue. “In balance, we will work. We are prepared to face any issue.”

With the Bihar election result interpreted as a massive popular reaction against endemic corruption, the Congress party is as anxious to bury the Volcker report as the BJP is to make mud stick to Mrs Gandhi and other notables in the ruling coalition.