Political Twenty20: Chasing 272, Govt tries match fixing

GAME, SET, MATCH: From L, Gowda of the JD(S), Soren of JMM and Ajit Singh of RLD hold the key.

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Keywords: Left, Upa

New Delhi: To save the Government and its nuclear deal, the ruling coalition is being forced to strike innumerable smaller deals, some of them quite demeaning and a few ridiculously bad bargains.

But the government has no other way to muster a majority and the Opposition is crying foul.

“PMO has become a bargaining counter byte,” says BJP spokesperson Aru Jaitley.

Shibu Soren's five Jharkhand Mukti Morcha MPs are suddenly in demand. For Shibu it's almost deja vu, a repeat of the infamous underhand deal of 1993 which he had struck with Narasimha Rao to bail out a minority government.

Soren, predictably, has gone into hiding. He has been offered a portfolio in the Cabinet. The BJP is also willing to offer him chief ministership of Jharkhand.

The Congress suddenly views the controversial Soren in a completely different light.

“He is perfectly qualified to be a minister and the PM is to take a call,” says Congress spokesperson Manish Tiwary.

Ajit Singh of the RLD, too, has extracted a portion of his pound of flesh. Amausi airport in Lucknow has been renamed after his father, former prime minister Chaudhury Charan Singh. The RLD's three MPs mean a lot to the UPA right now. But a pledge from the RLD may not be enough in a chaotic trust vote where cross-voting may easily upset calculations.

"Politics is very fractured today and since elections are so near, a lot of MPs on individual basis are looking as to what happens to them in the elections," Ajit says.

The Samajwadi Party is meeting on Friday. So is the JD(S). The Trinamool Congress and the National Conference are expected to take a call within the next two days.

For the Congress, survival means convincing at least three blocks of smaller parties and Independents. It's a touch and go scenario. And the MPs are aware that this is their only chance to drive home a hard bargain.