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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 NEW DELHI 002038 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR SCA/INS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL SOCI IN
SUBJECT: INDIA'S DOMESTIC POLITICAL LANDSCAPE AFTER THE 
CONFIDENCE VOTE 
 
REF: A. NEW DELHI 2012 
     ¶B. NEW DELHI 1990 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary: Following a dramatic July 22 confidence 
vote (Ref A), the political fallout has produced an 
emboldened United Progressive Alliance (UPA), a demoralized 
National Democratic Alliance (NDA), and somewhere in between, 
a regional party amalgam "Third Front," struggling to achieve 
national prominence.  The Congress Party-led UPA government's 
victory breathed new life into the ailing coalition.  The 
Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) momentum, which had been 
building after a string of electoral wins, has been at least 
momentarily halted.  Defections to the UPA exposed the BJP's 
poor political management.  The Left, which prompted the vote 
by withdrawing support for the UPA, was dealt a severe blow. 
Meanwhile, the politicking that surrounded the confidence 
motion heralded the national arrival of Uttar Pradesh Chief 
Minister and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Mayawati, who 
emerged as the head of the new ten party Third Front.  While 
leadership for this new Third Front will come from the 
populist Mayawati, its intellectual heft will likely come 
from the Left.  With national elections due by next May, the 
three alliances have begun staking out their political 
territory.  Domestically, the UPA and the NDA both favor 
economic reform with only the Left wedded to India's 
arch-socialist past.  On the foreign policy front, the groups 
follow three broad schools of thought (Ref A).  With India's 
diverse and fractured polity, signals point to a 2009 
national campaign as tumultuous as the confidence vote, 
followed by, more than likely, another coalition government. 
End Summary. 
 
Emboldened UPA 
-------------- 
 
¶2. (SBU) Prime Minister Singh clearly emerged from the July 
22 confidence vote as the biggest winner.  India's news 
outlets played the chorus "Singh is King" throughout the days 
following the vote.  The successful confidence motion pumped 
life back into the Congress Party, which had been reeling 
from a string of electoral defeats in Himachal Pradesh, 
Gujarat and Karnataka.  The UPA defeated the turncoat Left 
and the opposition BJP, and deflated Mayawati's premature 
prime ministerial bubble.  But the UPA relied on abstentions 
and defectors from a handful of regional parties as well as 
the BJP to win its slim majority and must now solidify these 
gains.  Though it suffered six defections of its own, the 
Samajwadi Party's (SP) support made victory possible. 
Observers expect minor cabinet additions to reward smaller 
parties that supported the government.  Newly unencumbered by 
the Left, Finance Minister Chidambaram promised more economic 
liberalization.  But with rising inflation and national 
elections around the corner, the short-term dislocation that 
often accompanies economic reforms will likely temper the 
more ambitious aspects of the UPA's plans (Ref B). 
Futhermore, any spending bill or legislative change would 
require testing the UPA's fragile majority once again through 
another parliamentary vote. 
 
Next Generation Leaders Emerge as Stars 
--------------------------------------- 
 
¶3. (SBU) Typically critical local media commended Rahul 
Gandhi's performance in the floor debate and his 
compassionate advocacy for energy security as a means to 
alleviate poverty, and for his plea for India to think about 
how it can impact the world rather than just how the world 
impacts India.  The Congress Party scion emerged from the 
debate looking more like the prime ministerial candidate he 
is one day likely to become.  Another "youngster," Jammu and 
Kashmir National Conference (J&KNC) MP Omar Abdullah received 
even higher praise from the press after his short but 
passionate speech in favor of the UPA and against the BJP and 
the Left.  Earnestly shouting, "I am a Muslim and I am an 
Indian, and I see no distinction between the two," Abdullah 
excoriated the BJP for the Gujarat riots and denounced the 
Left for trying to portray the nuclear deal as anti-Islamic. 
He said the enemies of Indian Muslims are not to be found in 
 
NEW DELHI 00002038  002 OF 003 
 
 
the nuclear initiative, but rather in poverty, hunger, and 
illiteracy.  The J&KNC is not a member of the UPA but has 
aligned with the Congress in the past.  His national profile 
raised, Abdullah returned to J&K a hero as that state heads 
to state elections this fall. 
 
Demoralized BJP 
--------------- 
 
¶4. (SBU) The BJP had been steadily gaining electoral momentum 
over the last year with state-level victories in Himachal 
Pradesh, Gujarat and Karnataka.  With public anti-incumbency 
sentiment increasing, rising inflation and the UPA's reform 
agenda stalled by its leftist supporters, many observers 
thought the BJP held a winning hand going into national 
elections.  But the party's listless attack on the nuclear 
initiative failed to resonate, and the cash-on-the-floor 
stunt showed the desperation of a party that knew it was 
going to lose.  The defection of eight MPs - many of whom 
faced delimitation - further displayed the party's weakness 
in retail politics and experienced political management which 
in the end delivered the UPA's victory. 
 
¶5. (SBU) The BJP is committed to a strong, broad relationship 
with the U.S., including at least in principle civil nuclear 
cooperation.  The party, as a scalding editorial in the 
conservative Pioneer read, "needs to move far away from the 
pointless and counterproductive nuclear debate and focus on 
stitching together social coalitions, tying up state 
alliances and deciding upon and articulating its programmatic 
content."  The bribery theatrics and halfhearted nuclear 
initiative opposition only opened the door for Mayawati to 
lay claim to the title "leader of the opposition." 
 
Fourth Attempt at a Third Front 
------------------------------- 
 
¶6. (SBU) In the days leading up to the confidence vote, Uttar 
Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati spearheaded an effort to 
bring numerous small undecided parties into a Third Front 
opposition.  Though the campaign ultimately failed, the buzz 
it generated marked her arrival on the national stage.  The 
morning after the confidence motion, leaders of ten regional 
parties, including the four parties of the Left Front, met at 
Mayawati's Delhi residence and pledged unity in a common 
campaign against the UPA on the issues of "price rise, 
agrarian distress, Indo-U.S. nuclear deal, communal forces 
and the gross misuse of government institutions like the CBI 
(Central Bureau of Investigation) for political purposes." 
 
¶7. (SBU) Representing roughly 100 MPs, the leaders did not 
announce a formal pre-poll alliance nor did they give any 
details about the nature of the coming campaign.  When asked 
if the group elected a leader, Mayawati responded, "We are 
all leaders in our own right." Communist Party leader Prakash 
Karat told the press "We have come together to conduct a 
campaign; the rest will be decided later."  The challenge for 
the multi-party third front movement will be to bridge the 
caste-based appeals of the supremely opportunistic Mayawati 
and the ideological class-based politics of the Left. 
 
This Round to UPA, Coalition Politics Remain 
-------------------------------------------- 
 
¶8. (SBU) The UPA's resounding and much needed victory brought 
an end to a string of BJP electoral successes over the last 
year.  The BJP, shaken by the defection of eight MPs, still 
has plenty of time to regroup and regain its lost momentum 
with several state elections due this fall.  On the Left, 
Communist leader Karat misread the Indian electorate at every 
step and his party's expulsion of Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath 
Chatterjee - the one statesmanlike figure to emerge from the 
cash-for-votes debacle - has left many party members 
questioning his judgment.  For now Karat has been reduced to 
playing second fiddle to Mayawati in a new, still coalescing 
Third Front.  Just three days after the confidence vote, West 
Bengal native Pranab Mukherjee, the Congress Party's 
principle Left interlocutor, told The Indian Express, "When a 
 
NEW DELHI 00002038  003 OF 003 
 
 
relationship breaks, naturally in the initial stage there 
will be some exchange of views, but in politics, nothing is 
permanent.  There are always situations and circumstances 
that change."  Though Mukherjee was speaking in a 
Congress-Left context, his remarks rings true for all Indian 
politics.  The July 22 confidence vote gave a preview of 
things to come.  Shifting alliances will dominate the 2009 
election campaign with a coalition government the nearly 
inevitable outcome. 
WHITE