Back to a Front

The National Democratic Alliance NDA, comprising the BJP and 13 of its allies, is an acknowledgement that it is next to impossible for ...

The National Democratic Alliance NDA, comprising the BJP and 13 of its allies, is an acknowledgement that it is next to impossible for a single party to preside over a complex polity like India8217;s; that the days of one-party rule are as good as over.

While an alliance, based on the mere act of supporting the Vajpayee government in a confidence vote, may seem an inherently fragile one, the fact that each constituent of this alliance needs the other could ensure that it survives the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune in the short term. For the smaller craft like the Samata Party and the Biju Janata Dal, an alliance of this kind could provide the ballast required to negotiate national waters, and large vessels like the BJP know that in the choppy waters that lie ahead it is wise to keep the lifeboats seaworthy.

The situation then is one of either staying afloat together or sinking individually. The BJP, given its earlier distinct and even disruptive agenda, has had to stoop in order to make such analliance possible. In 1991, the BJP leadership had seen the Ayodhya movement as the largest mass movement since independence to reaffirm the nation8217;s cultural identity.

Today, it meekly agrees to keep the 8220;contentious issues8221; that had once figured prominently in its election manifesto, like Ayodhya, the Uniform Civil Code and Article 370, out of the electoral reckoning. This must not be construed as a change of heart on the part of the BJP.

Rather, it expresses a new pragmatism dictated by ground realities. The old agenda has taken the party thus far and is unlikely to take it much further. Already, its ability to win the 57 seats it did in Uttar Pradesh in 1998 is bleak, especially with dissidence within the party8217;s UP unit continuing to simmer. Therefore it makes eminent sense for the party to try and acquire a more broad-based appeal through an alliance of this kind. Besides, in the event of the 13th Lok Sabha elections resulting in a fractured verdict, with the BJP not managing to emerge as thesingle largest party, it can still hope to get that much desired invitation from the President to form a government.

There are, of course, some flies in this ointment. Two important members of the BJP alliance, the TDP and the Trinamool Congress, have chosen to distance themselves from the NDA, with Chand-rababu Naidu firmly stating that his party would go it alone in Andhra Pradesh. Furthermore, many of the parties, like the Samata Party and the Biju Janata Dal, apart from the BJP itself, have had to contend with serious inner-party dissidence and it is an open question whether their leadership can manage these various factions within the larger Alliance.

There is also the important hurdle of seat-sharing to be crossed. If past experience is anything to go by, this is a phase when even the best of political friends can fall out with each other. Finally, there is the obvious lack of ideological cementing that can keep heterogeneous elements together. Whatever the failings of the United Front, at leastevery party within it had broadly professed secular values. The NDA, in which fish and fowl have to do business together, would require extraordinary leadership and generosity if it is to be a success.