NDA on autopilot

Evidently, the BJP-led coalition8217;s glue has thickened over the years. The alliance that has crossed its five-year milestone is far more closely knit than the one that assumed power in 1998. And there can be no better litmus test than this: On hitherto controversial outings of the BJP8217;s exclusive agenda, the allies are no more the imponderables.

The prevailing political common sense attributes it to Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The 20-odd parties in the NDA would not have come together, it says, and they won8217;t remain together, without his moderating touch. When Vajpayee became the first non-Congress prime minister to complete five years in office, commentators and analysts applauded him again for successfully running the disparate coalition. He may be a mask, they said, but an inalienable one. Vajpayee8217;s the glue that binds the NDA.

It may be time to recast this thesis. The unruffled calm in the allies8217; camp throughout the latest eruption of Ayodhya is the most recent suggestion that the NDA8217;s script has changed. And the most telling statement of the altered screenplay is that Vajpayee is not required to say the same lines anymore. By all accounts, the NDA8217;s sutradhar is no longer called upon to play as large, as indispensable a role.

When the alliance was cobbled together before the 1998 polls, Vajpayee was crucial. At that time, the BJP was still the political pariah; in 1996, Vajpayee became prime minister for the shortest time. When his government fell after only 13 days, the expected had happened. BJP8217;s political isolation was well known.

The BJP realised there was only one way to stay in power: By stitching up alliances. And there was only one way to do this: By putting its most tolerant 8212; and tolerable 8212; face forward.

Vajpayee was absolutely central to his party8217;s project to seduce allies and for the first few years in government he played a vital role. His was a gel-like leadership that spread easily across parties, absorbed the friction when conflicting positions rubbed against each other, supplied the elastic that prevented the NDA from snapping when allies tugged too hard. Most of all, Vajpayee could be counted on to sound the liberal note when the BJP tilted too far towards its extreme. But along the way, equations changed in the NDA. Gujarat was the most crucial signpost of this change.

In the aftermath of the unchecked carnage of Muslims in Modi8217;s dispensation, the self-styled secular allies 8212; National Conference, TDP, JDU, Trinamool Congress, Samata, Lok Janshakti 8212; demanded that Modi be shown the door. Only to back down when the BJP rallied behind its tainted CM. They insisted next that Modi shouldn8217;t capitalise on the state8217;s trauma. Modi announced fresh polls. The farce of the allies8217; protest over BJP8217;s complicity in Gujarat was completed in the Lok Sabha. Where, in the vote on an Opposition-sponsored censure motion, the NC abstained, TDP staged a walk-out and the rest voted with the government. Of course, Ram Vilas Paswan exited the NDA. But Gujarat was the excuse. The reason was UP, where the BJP was making overtures to Mayawati. Even Mayawati campaigned for the BJP in Gujarat, declaring the BSP8217;s willingness to sup with Modi, not Vajpayee alone.

Gujarat is the most telling statement yet of the new order in the NDA. In all the crucial moments 8212; be it the government8217;s steamrollering of Pota over allies8217; objections, L.K. Advani8217;s elevation as Dy PM despite their skepticism, or the pre-emptive bid to hand over the undisputed land in Ayodhya to the VHP 8212; the Big Allies buckle, one by one. Cracks in the NDA preemptively smooth themselves out; they don8217;t wait for the famed application of Vajpayee8217;s patented tact anymore.

Who, after all, needs a fight? Chandrababu Naidu can8217;t be bothered so long as he can extract central largesse for his state, Mamata has overplayed her hand and Samata is effectively two parties in one.

At least three factors are at work in the NDA. One, the cynical dissolution of any boundaries that must not be crossed, no matter what. Admittedly, the running of coalitions the world over requires deal-making. But in all mature coalitions, the give and take occurs within a bounded universe. Constituents of the NDA, however, strike bargains in an unbounded universe. After Gujarat, they also bank on the fact that even the larger texture of politics has changed. There are no penalties attached to not appearing moderate any more.

Two, regional outfits in the NDA are dictated by a strategic federalism. Bankrupt states constantly lobby the Centre to bail them out, and central allocations are handed out as discretionary doles. It largely depends on the persuasive powers of the chief minister and the receptivity of the Centre to the persuasion. Three, most regional outfits in the NDA fight the Congress on their home turf. The imperative to battle the Congress at home reduces the room for manoeuvre vis a vis the BJP at the Centre.

While Vajpayee8217;s ability to persuade and moderate assembled the 20-odd parties on one platform, other factors keep them together. Coalition politics today assigns a shrinking space to the qualities Vajpayee is seen to symbolise; the NDA cruises on a dynamic far more hard-nosed.

In retrospect, it is possible almost to feel romantic about the time when Vajpayee was more in demand as a moderator within the NDA. It was acknowledgement, if only for form8217;s sake, that coalition politics is a negotiation of differing positions. The unmediated calm that prevails in the NDA now speaks of a coalition politics that has abdicated all its possibilities of generating a more robust coalition culture.