The winner loses - The Observer

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The aphorism, the winner loses, aptly sums up the outcome
of the UP assembly elections. The BJP is poised to
emerge as the single largest party in a hung assembly.
With counting for just five seats left to be taken up (at
the time of writing), the party has bagged 155 seats
(including two seats won by its ally, the Samata
Party).and is leading in 13 constituencies. The story in
a nutshell is that the BJP's tally of seats has stagnated
around the 176 mark. Which means that the master stroke
it was banking on to win an outright majority - the
termination of the arrangement for pooling of the caste
based votes of the SP and the BSP which the BJP had
executed with finesse - has come a cropper. Even more
galling is the prospect of history being repeated within
a span of five months. The crown in Delhi had slipped
through its fingers in May when, despite being the lar-
gest single party in a hung Parliament, the BJP found
itself totally friendless. The same isolation is now
going to deny the party power in UP too.

The BJP's mortification is, however, the United Front's
saving grace. A majority for the BJP or a position close
enough to allow the latter viable elbow room for cobbling
a majority would have sharply eroded the UF government's
legitimacy at the Centre. The UF's sigh of relief is
audible enough. But the ruling coalition is not yet home
and dry even though a possible tally of 130 seats or
thereabouts should give it a logical dominance in a non-
BJP coalition. Which obviously means a coalition with
the BSP-Congress alliance. But then only the naive can
expect logic to bend the implacable antagonism between SP
chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and the BSP supremo Kanshi Ram
and his protege Mayawati.

Sitaram Kesri has queered the pitch further by insisting
that the UF support the BSP Congress alliance in UP as a
quid pro quo. For a group, which can expect to win about
100 seats, to dictate terms to another with superior
numbers is a perversion of democratic principles. The
UF's answer will depend on whether it feels inclined to
dig in its heels to set the rules of the game or it
considers the strategic gains of keeping the BJP out of
power in UP sufficient recompense.

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