Friends in need

The rumblings in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) show that it is far from homogeneous. Neither the Samata-Lok Shakti combine’s bid to rope in the Sharad Yadav faction of the Janata Dal into the NDA nor the BJP’s attempt to prevent such a development was guided by their proclaimed intention to strengthen the alliance. It does not require much prescience to say that George Fernandes and Ramakrishna Hegde were merely strengthening their bargaining position vis-a-vis the BJP by facilitating a split in the Janata Dal and welcoming one of the splinter groups into the NDA. The BJP clearly recognises this danger and that is why it has been opposing what it calls the “backdoor entry” of the JD. Again, it is not because of any sudden love for the BJP’s leadership that the JD leaders in Karnataka and Bihar have thought of aligning themselves with the NDA. The alternative was to face electoral, if not political, extinction. In Ferna-ndes’ and Hegde’s perception, parties like the Sa-mata and the Lok Shakti willbe expendable commodities if the BJP is able to improve its electoral performance. Thus, in order not to get marginalised in the NDA, it made sense for them to strengthen themselves much before the elections. Such a tie-up will enable them to bargain for more seats, which will be at the cost of the BJP.

It is difficult to be convinced by the arguments put forward by the BJP to oppose the JD’s possible presence in the NDA. The plea that the JD MPs voted against the BJP government in the crucial vote of confidence does not wash, particularly wh-en the party did not have any compunction in mollycoddling and eventually aligning with Haryana leader O.P. Chauthala, although he had at one cri-tical point during the run-up to the confidence vote in April openly sided with the AIADMK chief Jayalalitha. Similarly, the plea that the JD in Ka-rnataka will be a liability for the BJP does not carry conviction because the BJP has not been wary of such electoral understandings in the past. By no stretch of the imaginationcan the ruling party claim that its links with Sukh Ram’s party in Himachal Pradesh and Chauthala’s in Haryana are great electoral assets. If anti-incumbency is what worries the BJP, as its Karnataka leaders cl-aim, then its tie-up with the DMK does not make any sense. It is worth recalling that in the last Lok Sabha elections, it was the anti-incumbent vote that helped the AIADMK-BJP alliance to romp home victorious. In fact, all the elections in Tamil Nadu since the DMK came to power have decidedly gone against the ruling party.

The BJP’s protestations in Karnataka stem from the belief that the party can on its own do well in the state. Ideology has always been a fig-leaf for the BJP and its precursor, the Jana Sangh, which did not fight shy of rubbing shoulders with the Communists to form governments in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh in the sixties. Small wonder then that some tough talking by Fernandes and Hegde has already softened the BJP’s stand against the induction of the JD. From stoutly opposing theSamata-Lok Shakti-JD understanding to referring the matter to Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee to projecting the whole issue as nothing but minor differences, the BJP has come a long way in realising how vulnerable it is to the machinations of its own allies. It knows only too well that in its pursuit of power, it does not have many choices.