India MPs to Hold Confidence Vote

Rahul Gandhi tried his best to rise above the rough trade of politics in a speech on the floor of India's Parliament July 22, but his detractors wouldn't let him. Heckled and hassled as he tried to tell a story about a poor farmer's widow named Kalavati, Gandhi had to stop about 20 minutes into his speech as order dissolved around him. The disrupted speech ended a day of mudslinging in New Delhi as Gandhi's Congress Party tries desperately to keep its majority in Parliament and, in the process, position itself as the Obama-esque party of change in elections next year.

Gandhi, the son and grandson of assassinated former Prime Ministers, and now a member of Parliament representing his father's old district, Amethi, in Northern India, was the marquee speaker in a debate in India's Lok Sabha, the lower house of Parliament, over a controversial civilian nuclear deal between the U.S. and India. The Congress Party, led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, has staked its political future on the deal, arguing that it ushers India onto the world stage as a declared nuclear state. India's two main leftist parties pulled their support for Singh, fearing the deal makes India subservient to U.S. policy. Amid frenzied politicking over the last several days, the Congress Party now faces a vote of confidence in Parliament that will either reduce it to a caretaker administration or shore up its support among new partners in a coalition government.

The controversy has created a chaotic political atmosphere that was apparent during Gandhi's speech. "I decided that it is important at this point not to speak as the member of a political party but to speak as an Indian," Gandhi said in his choirboy's tenor, pausing awkwardly between every few words as he seemed to gather his thoughts. That comment set off the first round of jeers, as the opposition grabbed the opening to take offense at an imagined jibe at their patriotism and remind the gallery that Gandhi's mother, Sonia Gandhi, was born an Italian and that the Harvard and Cambridge-educated Gandhi is most comfortable in English. He then pleaded — in Hindi — for his opponents to listen and resumed his attempt to make the case that energy security can be directly connected to the fight against poverty. That's a central premise in Congress' argument in favor of the nuclear deal, which will open up trade in nuclear material and civilian nuclear technology between India and the U.S. Congress Party members maintain that an expansion of India's nuclear energy output will reduce India's dependence on petroleum, promote growth and give the government the resources it needs to help millions of Indians who live on less than a dollar a day.

Gandhi made his point with an anecdote in a village called Vidarbha, in western India, where he recently visited a landless laborer's family. "I noticed there was no electricity in the house," he said, and saw that the three sons shared a brass lamp to study by at night. "The problem of energy security reflects itself every day with the poor." After enduring another round of boos, Gandhi launched into another anecdote, about Kalavati, whose husband committed suicide three years ago after their cotton crops failed. Shouted down for telling stories rather than debating the merits of the nuclear deal, it took Gandhi four attempts to finish describing how the woman planted new crops and bought a buffalo to provide for her nine children, before he was drowned out by a Member of Parliament (MP) who claimed that he was being harassed for opposing the Congress Party position.

By shoving Gandhi, 38, into the spotlight at a critical juncture, the Congress Party is attempting to position itself as the party of youth, idealism and change. His relative inexperience and slightly unpolished style may resonate with a rising generation of youthful voters who are unhappy with the country's shabby politics. Gandhi even indulged in a Barack Obama-like bipartisan hymn, praising the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party for advancing India's nuclear interests when it was in power and pledging to work with politicians of all stripes regardless of whether Congress keeps its majority. "We can change this country and affect the world," he said.

That message is unlikely to make a difference in the outcome of the vote of confidence. If Congress wins, it will likely be by just a few votes, which it has secured not with idealistic appeals but by cutting deals. The Party promised one MP, Shibu Soren of Jharkand, that his son would get a top position in the coal ministry in exchange for his confidence vote. Jharkand lost his post as minister of coal in 2006 shortly after he was convicted of murder in the 1994 death of his personal secretary. A higher court later acquitted him in that case. Congress MP Devwrat Singh says such deals are reasonable political compromises. "It's the coal-bearing belt," Singh says. "The coal ministry should be for Jharkand." The complaints about dealmaking reached their peak toward the end of the afternoon, with BJP politicians displaying wads of cash on the floor of Parliament and claiming that they had been offered bribes for their vote. The spectacle, shocking even to India's jaded electorate, has delayed the confidence vote and has made the calls for change that much more urgent.
With reporting by Madhur Singh / New Delhi