The Opposition has labelled the 2024 budget as ‘Kursi Bachao’ (save the regime), saying the BJP had to buckle under pressure from two main allies — Andhra Pradesh’s TDP and Bihar’s JDU — and give them the lion’s share.
While the government and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman herself rejected the narrative by saying all states had been accounted for, there is one man who understands what the ‘Kursi Bachao’ plan is all about — former prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh.
Many of Singh’s pet projects had to be either put on hold or cancelled because the allies posed a threat to his government. In fact, Congress, as a party, forced Singh to push his dream projects on the backburner.
One cannot forget 2009 when he returned to power as prime minister with the tagline ‘Singh is King’. However, on Day One itself, he faced pressure and his decision to not let some DMK leaders like TR Balu and A Raja become ministers again had to be rolled back because a miffed DMK said it would not be a part of his government.
Singh had two pet projects that he felt would work for the economy and also generate jobs. One was his plan to raise the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) cap in three important sectors — telecom, insurance and civil aviation. The CPI(M) objected to the move, saying it would compromise on national security and cause unnecessary outflow of foreign exchange through the repatriation of profits.
The second step was to put on hold Singh’s proposal of FDI in retail. Not just the then opposition like BJP but even its own allies like the Left objected to the move and there was a chance that the prime minister would not get the numbers in Parliament. Hence, this proposal too was rolled back.
But what was more embarrassing was a diplomatic U-turn in 2011 when Singh planned a trip to Dhaka with Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee but she opted out as she was against the signing of the Teesta water-sharing deal between India and Bangladesh. The agreement had to be put on hold as Banerjee, a powerful ally, refused to budge.
Apart from these, there have been other instances such as the headache over signing of the India-US nuclear deal, when Singh had to depend on the Samajwadi Party and Banerjee to ensure the deal was through.
The many flip-flops earned the tag of ‘Rollback PM’ for Singh. No one more than him understood that the crown of power was uneasy as he gulped his pride to save his ‘kursi’.
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