Fight, but talk

Chandrababu Naidu and Mulayam Singh Yadav 8212; the pioneers of the latest non-BJP, non-Congress political effort 8212; are not wildly fanciful in their political arithmetic. It is possible to have a national government minus either of the national parties. The question is what such a government will do for the nation. For example, where would the political/policy centre of gravity of such a government be? This is enormously important because the next decade or so can complete or delete the India story that has just started being written. The last decade and a half has seen the Congress and the BJP take turns; the United Front government existed at the pleasure of the Congress and, let8217;s be blunt, it had some smart people like P. Chidambaram in key positions. What Naidu, Yadav and their putative allies are aiming for may not have these constraints.

What it may have are somewhat scary political somersaults like those being exhibited by Naidu 8212; once a committed reformer and a sensible politician who now enthusiastically supports the entry of religion in foreign policy and of mothballed socialism in economic policy. He is the architect of many economic policies that he and Yadav are together trashing as the common philosophy of the BJP-Congress. Politics allows a certain amount of moral and ideological flexibility look at, for example, the blurring of the 8216;secular8217;-8216;non-secular8217; divide. But it also calls for a common minimum consistency. The BJP and the Congress, whatever their faults, possess this attribute, which is why the country8217;s foreign and economic policy has had such continuity.

Ironically, agreement on crucial broad issues hasn8217;t helped to mend relations between the BJP and the Congress. They rarely talk. This is bad for politics anyway but it is terrible if there8217;s a chance that the nation may lose the stability that comes from bipolarity. This newspaper has always maintained that while the BJP and the Congress must compete and criticise each other, they must also cooperate when the need arises. The prospect that both might sit in the Opposition should concentrate their mind.