VZCZCXRO3504
RR RUEHAST RUEHBI RUEHCI RUEHLH RUEHPW
DE RUEHCG #0260/01 2180949
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 050949Z AUG 08
FM AMCONSUL CHENNAI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 1779
INFO RUEHNE/AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI 3216
RUCNCLS/ALL SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIA COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 CHENNAI 000260 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL ECON ENRG IN
SUBJECT: SOUTH INDIA HELPS UPA IN CONFIDENCE VOTE, BUT TROUBLE AHEAD 
FOR RULING COALITION 
 
REF:  A) NEW DELHI 2012 B) CHENNAI 229 C) CHENNAI 224 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Summary:  When the dust settled after the gripping July 22 
trust vote in India's parliament (ref A), South Indians found the 
regional political landscape altered.  Andhra Pradesh's Telugu Desam 
Party (TDP), a UPA opponent, fell further into disarray when two of 
its five Members of Parliament defied the party's directive to vote 
against the government.  In Tamil Nadu, the regional DMK party stood 
fast with the UPA, while helping convince two MPs from a competing 
regional party to defect to the UPA cause.  It will be difficult, 
however, for Congress and the DMK to hold onto their seats from 
Tamil Nadu as the DMK-led alliance in the state rests on cooperation 
between the now estranged Congress and Left parties.  The results 
from Karnataka were also mixed for the UPA:  supporters of the 
ruling coalition were thrilled that four BJP MPs from the state 
defied the party whip, but are concerned that the prospect of a 
Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) (JDS) alliance is dimmer after the JDS 
ordered its members to vote against the UPA.  End summary. 
 
TDP struggles continue as two of five defy whip 
--------- 
 
¶2.  (U) Trust-vote politicking turned out to be a roller coaster 
ride for TDP leader Chandrababu Naidu.  The TDP, the Congress 
party's principal opposition in Andhra Pradesh, has recently fallen 
onto hard times in the state (ref B).  But in the weekend leading up 
to the trust vote national politics seemed to be providing Naidu 
some comfort from his struggles at home.  Even though his regional 
party has only five MPs in India's parliament, Naidu found his 
profile enhanced as he was at the center of last-minute efforts to 
forge an anti-UPA alliance composed of disparate regional parties 
including his own TDP, various Left parties, and Mayawati's Bahujan 
Samaj Party (BSP). 
 
¶3.  (U) Despite the sense that the foray into national politics was 
helping elevate the TDP, the actual trust vote delivered a shocking 
blow when two of the party's five MPs unexpectedly defied Naidu's 
order to vote against the UPA.  Naidu's inability to keep his own 
flock in line deflated any boost he had received during the 
preceding week's efforts to revive the "Third Front."  Worse yet, 
the defections in the trust vote refocused attention on the string 
of senior leaders, including his second-in-command, who had 
abandoned the TDP in recent months.  Stung by the recent setbacks, 
many media analysts predict that the TDP will try to ally with the 
BSP, Left parties, and the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) in the 
upcoming elections.  (Comment:  That the TDP, which dominated Andhra 
Pradesh politics for much of the 1990s, is reduced to trying to 
cobble together such an alliance speaks volumes about the hard times 
that have befallen it.  It is especially striking that Naidu would 
consider partnering with the TRS, whose call for a separate 
Telangana state he has assiduously avoided endorsing.  End comment.) 
 
 
DMK steadfast in commitment to Congress 
--------- 
 
¶4.  (U) The trust vote fortified relations between Congress and 
Tamil Nadu's DMK party with all 16 of the party's MPs voting for the 
UPA.  Although there were rumors that one DMK MP -- former Union 
Minister Dayanidhi Maran -- might abstain due to his estrangement 
from DMK Chief Minister Karunanidhi's family, he ultimately voted to 
sustain the government.  Moreover, the DMK helped convince two MPs 
from the MDMK (another Tamil Nadu-based party) to cross over and 
vote for the UPA against the wishes of its party leader, Vaiko.  The 
85-year-old DMK patriarch Karunanidhi, who travels little these 
days, flew to New Delhi two days after the trust vote to personally 
congratulate Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.  While 
in New Delhi, Karunanidhi told the press that his alliance with the 
Congress would continue in the next elections, which must take place 
before May 2009.  After he returned from Delhi, he told post that 
Sonia Gandhi and the UPA leadership were very pleased with the DMK's 
support and that they were delighted that they won the trust vote 
with such a comfortable margin. 
 
¶5.  (U) Karunanidhi's visit was more than a congratulatory courtesy 
call:  he extracted concessions from the UPA government.  First, the 
central government promised 100 megawatts of additional power to the 
state, which has recently suffered from electricity shortages.  The 
central government also promised that it would set up two 4000 MW 
power stations in Tamil Nadu, at a combined cost of $7.6 billion. 
Regarding the politically sensitive issue of ongoing run-ins between 
fishermen from Tamil Nadu and the Sri Lankan navy, the center 
reportedly assured Karunanidhi that Prime Minister Singh would raise 
the issue with Sri Lanka during the SAARC summit in Colombo. 
 
¶6.  (SBU) Sticking with the UPA came with a political price for the 
DMK.  The UPA split with the Left hurts the DMK at home, as both the 
Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPM) and the Communist Party of 
India (CPI) are members of the DMK-led Democratic Progressive 
 
CHENNAI 00000260  002 OF 002 
 
 
Alliance (DPA) in Tamil Nadu.  Following the trust vote, DMK leaders 
expressed their hope that the Communists would continue with the DPA 
despite the rupture between Congress and the Left in New Delhi.  The 
prospect of the CPM and CPI abandoning the DPA on account of the 
DMK's pro-Congress stand in the trust vote is particularly troubling 
because the DPA just suffered an important defection in June (ref C) 
when another Tamil Nadu party, the PMK, split with the DMK. 
 
Karnataka:  Four members defy BJP leadership 
--------- 
 
¶7. (SBU) Karnataka delivered one of the trust vote's biggest 
surprises when four of sixteen BJP members of parliament from 
Karnataka defied their leadership's directive to vote against the 
UPA.  Two members voted in favor of the UPA, while one abstained and 
the other was absent.  Prominent among the BJP dissenters is H.T. 
Sangliana, a former Director General of Karnataka's police, who 
represents the prestigious North Bangalore constituency.  A 
Christian, Sangliana was reportedly irritated that the BJP failed to 
name a single Christian candidate to contest a seat in the May 
legislative assembly elections, according to a press contact who 
also said that Congress has already offered him a party ticket in 
the next parliamentary elections.  Sangliana told us that he 
believed that nuclear power would add to India's energy security and 
would help maintain the pace of growth. 
 
¶8. (SBU) The same press contact told us that electoral calculations 
caused Manjunath Kunnur to defy the BJP whip, as he is expecting to 
secure a Congress party ticket in the next elections.  Irritated by 
her party's restructuring of the party district committee in her 
Udipi district, Manorama Madhwaraj abstained in the confidence vote. 
 Srikantappa (Chikmagalur constituency) had eye surgery before the 
confidence vote, and claimed that he was too ill to travel to New 
Delhi despite appeals from BJP leaders. 
 
Dissident member tears nascent Congress-JDS relations asunder 
--------- 
 
¶9. (SBU) JDS Chief Deve Gowda's decision to issue a party whip for 
members to vote against the UPA seemingly clipped the budding 
Congress-JDS relationship in Karnataka.  One of the three JDS MPs 
(Shivanna), however, voted to support the UPA.  The district he 
hails from, our press contact told us, is strongly pro-Congress, and 
Congress won every seat in Shivanna's parliamentary district in the 
May legislative assembly elections. 
 
¶10. (SBU) The Congress-JDS partnership may yet bloom.  Revanna 
Gowda, son of Deve Gowda and a prominent JDS figure in his own 
right, told us that an alliance with Congress was still possible, 
noting (a bit too optimistically, perhaps) that the confidence 
motion would be forgotten by the time the parliamentary elections 
are announced.  Congress may also want to have a short memory. 
Veerappa Moily, an All Indian Congress Committee member from 
Karnataka and former Chief Minister, told us that the party will 
need to scale back its expectations in Karnataka for the next 
parliamentary elections if it fails to cement an alliance with the 
JDS.  He estimated that Congress could reasonably expect to win only 
10 to 16 seats on its own vice 20 to 23 if it secured an alliance 
with the JDS. 
 
No surprises in Kerala 
--------- 
 
¶11.  (U) In Kerala things went as predicted, with 19 of the state's 
20 MPs voting against the UPA.  The sole Kerala vote for the UPA 
came from E. Ahamed of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML).  There 
was speculation that the IUML would force Ahamed, who is also 
Minister of State for External Affairs in the UPA government, to 
take a stand against the UPA but, in the end, he stayed with the 
government. 
 
Comment:  Short-term gains, but 
long-term concerns for UPA in South India 
--------- 
 
¶12.  (SBU) Comment:  South India was good to the UPA in the trust 
vote; the ruling alliance picked up five unexpected votes in favor, 
two abstentions, and one absent MP, helping the government stay in 
power.  But the trust vote victory may have come at a serious cost 
to the alliance's electoral prospects in South India.  In Karnataka 
the Congress is looking to link up with the JDS; in Tamil Nadu the 
DMK wants to keep the state's Left parties in the DPA.  The rifts 
created by the trust vote, however, could end up costing the UPA 
twenty to thirty seats in the next elections.  End comment. 
 
KAPLAN