SOUTH INDIA HELPS UPA IN CONFIDENCE VOTE, BUT TROUBLE AHEAD

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

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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