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Implacable foes, skittish allies - The Observer

Inder Malhotra ()
March 18, 1998

Title: Implacable foes, skittish allies
Author: Inder Malhotra
Publication: The Observer
Date: March 18, 1998

Jayalalitha made the length of the BJP rule in Delhi dependent
on the height of the Periyar dam.

With Atal Behari Vajpayee duly designated as Prime Minister, the
rather long delay in the swearing-in may be due to astrological
considerations or political exigencies, or both. The key question
now is: Where do we go from here?

In the short run, almost everything will depend, of course, on
how well he is able to stabilise his coalition government in a
milieu in which the people are supposed to be hankering for
stability but refusing to vote in accordance with this sentiment.
If the new Lok Sabha is badly fractured and the configuration of
political forces in it precarious as never before, it is because
national issues were hardly ever focused on by either the
electorate or the parties and leaders seeking their mandate. The
overall verdict is therefore the mechanical total of the
different patterns, emerging in different states, largely on the
basis of state-specific issues. It is no accident that even in
two neighbouring states, such as Maharashtra and Gujarat, the
voting trends have been completely opposite.

Against this backdrop, the omen for the immediate future cannot
be said to be entirely propitious. The most discouraging of
these is the strange and petulant behaviour of J Jayalalitha,
supremo of the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu and unquestionably the most
important ally of the BJP. She led this party's top leadership to
an unmerry dance and indeed heaped a certain amount of
humiliation on its head.

In the end, the matter was resolved but the imperious lady from
Chennai, now agreeable to joining the BJP-led government, along
with some of her acolytes, has left a bad taste in the country's
collective mouth. As someone pithily put it, she practically made
the length of the BJP rule in Delhi dependent on the height of
the Periyar dam on the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border.

Secondly, and more importantly, the level of contention in the
country, already uncomfortably high, could escalate. One reason
for this, ironically, has less to do with the BJP or its allies-
some of whom might be tempted in future to imitate Jayalalitha's
tantrums - than with the Congress, now under total and formal
control of Sonia Gandhi. Her takeover has been widely described
as a oup and the ousted Congress president, Sitaram Kesri,
(who has had no twinge of conscience while toppling P V Narasimha
Rao) has described the operation as llegal and
unconstitutional=94. However, his is a voice in the wilderness.

The pertinent point about the change of Congress leadership is
that most non-Congress parties view it as the eturn of the
dynasty - a factor which has exacerbated political conflict in,
the past and is likely to do so in future.

For its part, the Sonia Congress, after telling the President
that it would not stake a claim to form a government because it
did not have the numbers, has also announced that it will try to
see to it that the BJP-led government does not get the confidence
vote.

This is nothing, however, compared with the dire threats
emanating from the likes of Harkishen Singh Surjeet, Mulayam
Singh Yadav, Laloo Yadav et al. These worthies had left no stone
unturned in their attempt to prevent the BJP from coming to
power. Having spurned Congress participation in their own
government at a time when its life was dependent on Congress
support from utside=94, they suddenly discovered great virtue in
a Congress-led government in which they themselves would have
been junior partners.

It is a measure of their own lust for power and office -
carefully camouflaged by their screams that "communal BJP must be
kept out of power at all costs" for the sake of secularism - that
some of them went on telling Mr K R Narayanan that they needed
"more time" to rig up a Congress-UF government even though the
Congress was having nothing of this ploy.

Now these BJP-phobes have announced that they would defeat the
BJP bloc only a few votes short of the clear majority in the Lok
Sabha - in the vote of the confidence debate due within 10 days
of the Vajpayee government's swearing in. But this is no more
than bombast. The BJP-led government would have no difficulty in
having a working majority. The author of this near-certainty is,
ironically, the convenor of the UF, or whatever is left of it,
Chandrababu Naidu. Despite relentless pressure on him he intends
to stand firm on his resolve to remain neutral between the BJP
and the Congress.

No one should blame Naidu. He has to reckon with harsh realities
of life. For a political formation in Delhi in which regional
parties are dominant, co-operation with the Congress produces a
major tradiction. For, most of these regional groupings, and
Naidu's Telugu Desam in Andhra Pradesh certainly, have to fight a
life-and-death battle with the Congress on home-ground. In
addition to this, the new government will have the great
advantage of Vajpayee's leadership, his general acceptability in
the country and well-known skill in promoting conciliation and
consensus. And yet the irony may be that he might be able to
build bridges with his opponents more easily than keep his allies
in line. For instance, who can restrain George Fernandes from
making pronouncements on economic policy which cannot but
embarrass the coalition? It will alto help if the lady from
Calcutta, Mamata Banerjee, can be persuaded to follow
Jayalalitha's example.

Even at the risk of stressing the obvious, it must be pointed out
that the practice of support to a government from "outside" has
turned out to be pernicious and destructive and therefore needs
to be given up. A careful reading of the Rashtrapati. Bhavan
communique issued. immediately after Vajpayee's appointments as
Prime Minister will show that the, President is fully cognizant
of this fact.' He cited Jayalalitha's announcement of her
willingness to be a part of the government as the most important
of the three reasons for handing over power to the BJP.

After securing the vote of confidence, the Vajpayee government's
principal task will be to prepare a budget that will rescue the
country from the economic. slowdown and uncertainty already
afflicting it. Differences within the BJP camp, as indeed within
the BJP itself, will have to be ignored and a sound and balanced
policy forged. Otherwise, the stagnation of the economic reforms
for nearly a year; and half would be unnecessarily prolonged.

There are any number of other measures on which national
consensus exists which the BJP can enact quickly and strengthen'
itself, like the electoral reforms, urgent amendment of anti-
defection law. There is something which Mr Vajpayee must do if
the support base of the BJP is to be extended. Large sections of
the Indian population are still sceptical about the modernisation
of the BJP programme. It should be the new Prime Minister's
priority job to carry greater credibility with them.


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