Two more years!

To see how the UPA government, three years old now, has squandered its good fortune, remember that the NDA government was busy battling the fallout of riots and scandals after three years in office. Even then, the Vajpayee-led government seemed less listless and more in control of policy. So what is the UPA expending its energies on, so much so that we face, with some trepidation, the prospect of looking at an exhausted government for the next two years? Certainly, being in denial has taken a lot out of this government. The government as a collective has been in denial that it has presided over three high growth years. The prime minister and his finance and commerce ministers have tried telling the India story. But they almost appear to be dissidents against the official line, and dissidence while governing is exhausting business. No doubt Mani Shankar Aiyar, who is redefining the rules of government discipline, is finding out that it is much more relaxing to openly trash economic policy than to fume about it in private. No doubt, too, some other ministers, who have kept their trashing private so far, are wondering whether they should go public.

It is customary for report cards on government to move from general impression to specific assessments. But since that8217;s a list these columns have pored over many times, let8217;s try looking ahead this time. How will the UPA look at the end of its term? Assuming extraordinary events don8217;t happen, here8217;s a short list that tells a most damning story.

There will be a Rajya Sabha PM who never faced the people and who won8217;t appear to be backed 100 per cent by the ruling party and therefore will miss out on leveraging the goodwill that comes from his personal integrity. There won8217;t probably be a clear articulation either of the Congress8217;s alternative preference. There will be a government that will probably appear more a loose confederation of bickering tribes than a political collective. There will be a party that will probably be tempted to tack even more to the populist left than in the last election. There will be allies who would have taken full advantage of a government with weak central authority. There will be a Left that most probably won8217;t be in a position to win an election lottery as in 2004. And there will be an election.