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 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