Battered, but still standing

In fact, last week8217;s events highlight four endemic problems plaguing the NDA. Internal dissent, the serious alienation of some members, endemic confusion and the fading personal appeal of A.B. Vajpayee.

To come to the first point, it has now become possible for various constituents of the coalition to criticise the BJP openly. Last week, not only did the allies flay the government over Gujarat, two of the partners, the Telugu Desam Party TDP and the NC, did not vote with it. The issue divided another partner, the Janata DalU. Yet, the BJP has no option but to lump it.

Equally significant was Ram Vilas Paswan8217;s exit because it is the first time this has happened since the 1999 elections 8212; with the exception of Mamata Banerjee who deserted the coalition briefly to fight the West Bengal polls. While Paswan8217;s resignation may not have had a domino effect, it has put the allies under pressure.

To add to this is the enormous confusion that marks the BJP8217;s own policies. On last week8217;s motion, the party took one stand in the Lok Sabha and quite another in Rajya Sabha.

But it is the fading appeal of the prime minister that is arguably the most disquieting factor. Until now the glue that held the NDA together was Vajpayee8217;s personal image and the agenda for governance under which the BJP had agreed to put aside its own political agenda. The turning point really came in Goa with the prime minister8217;s stunning statements and the BJP showing every sign of jettisoning the agenda. This meant that the allies suddenly found themselves deprived of the fig leaf of secular legitimacy they had given themselves. That all these factors have not resulted in the coalition cracking up can be ascribed to the fact that there are no elections imminent as of now.

Much will depend on the stance the BJP adopts in the weeks to come. If it moves towards a more strident Hindutva, then many of the allies will have no option but to move away from the BJP. The prime minister has in a preemptive move tried to protect himself against this by forging an alliance with the BSP and sewing up an arrangement with Jayalalithaa. But Mayawati8217;s Muslim MLAs are already under pressure from religious leaders within the community who have threatened to excommunicate them and that introduces an element of uncertainty. As for Jayalalithaa, she has always been an unreliable ally. If the sangh parivar, having used Gujarat to signal to Vajpayee that it is unprepared to be pushed around, agrees to adopt a more conciliatory tone, the NDA may survive. But if the RSS ups the ante yet again, there is certainly going to be a strong counter reaction from the allies.

The next defining moment will come with the Gujarat polls which are due next year, which is why neither the prime minister nor allies like the TDP want the polls there to be advanced. Although Vajpayee8217;s attempt in the coming weeks will be to bring down the political temperature and speak the language of reconciliation 8212; as was reflected in the Rajya Sabha debate 8212; the bottom line for the BJP is clear. What is at stake for the party is its identity as a national entity. Having lost in several states in the Hindi belt, it can ill afford to lose Gujarat now and knows that the issue of governance cannot alone guarantee it the requisite votes. How will this affect the NDA government? Says BJP spokesman J.P. Mathur,8216;8216;The NDA is intact and the government is not in danger. Why did Chandrababu not dare to vote against us?8217;8217;

Yes, the NDA coalition is intact for now. But it appears like a sad bunch held together by individual and group interests with a one point agenda: stop the Congress at all costs.

As D. Dwivedy, once with the Nationalist Party and now with the Congress, puts it, 8216;8216;Stability is not a matter of numbers. It has everything to do with the quality of credibility of governance.8217;8217; Something the NDA coalition is doing little about, preoccupied as it is with its desperate attempt to survive.