There is a great story on First Post: With Mulayam on its side, UPA won’t need Mamata anymore , which has correctly identified the changing political equations in the country. To quote from the story:
“ Indicatively, the Samajwadi Party has 21 MPs in the Lok Sabha and eight in the Rajya Sabha; the Trinamool Congress, on the other hand, has 20 MPs in the Lok Sabha and nine in the Rajya Sabha. But it’s not just about the numbers. As The Telegraph reported, citing Congress sources, having Mulayam Singh by its side gives the Congress much more elbow room on policy matters: for all the “samajwadi” economic philosophy that his party embraces, Mulayam Singh is perceived to be “more flexible” than Mamata when it comes to economic reforms.”
So what does that mean now for some of the major reforms and other governance measures that have been on the backburner?
Many of those measures are likely to go through, and that’s the silver lining in this whole thing. However, Karuna can still play the spoilsport, but only to a limited extent. CBI (Congress) has cases pending against his daughter and Raja, one of his key lieutenants.
Previously, it had been Mamata who was making the decisions (so to say) around all major initiatives. Now it will be Mulayam.
Mulayam is expected to be flexible. But why is that so? For the same reason that Lalu Prasad is flexible … all the CBI cases pending against him, his relatives and his friends, cases ranging from murder to bribery. Congress has done this kind of deal with Mulayam before, withdrawing a CBI case in return for support. That’s the kind of deal they must have worked out now.
Murder, rapes and lawlessness in UP are likely to continue, since Mulayam would now have the backing of the centre. All in all, Mulayam might be the silver bullet that Congress was looking for.
