UPA146;s downer

But less than a year in office, things seem to be falling apart. The first crack came in Maharashtra, when the Congress won less seats than the NCP but insisted on the chief minister8217;s post. And then there was Bihar and Jharkhand, where UPA allies fought one another and each lost singly and as a collective.

Add the dubious role of the Jharkhand and Goa governors, and it is easy to conclude the Congress, wittingly or not, is back to its 8216;8216;dirty old tricks8217;8217;.

SO has the Congress forgotten the art of coalition management even before it learnt it? Is the Congress, as CPIM leader Prakash Karat thundered in Kolkata, a leopard 8216;8216;that does not change spots?8217;8217;

The allies seem to think so. Commenting on the recent elections, Karat told The Sunday Express, 8216;8216;As leader of the UPA, the Congress has to share the major responsibility for the failure to keep together its alliance in both Bihar and Jharkhand. The results should serve as a warning to the Congress leadership.8217;8217;

RJD leader Raghuvansh Prasad said much the same thing: 8216;8216;Congress ko raj chalane ka anubhav hai, par coalition politics ka nahin Congress has the experience to rule but not of coalition politics.8217;8217; In Bihar, the Congress would have done better even if it had fought just 20 seats in alliance with the RJD, he insists.

Sharad Pawar8217;s scepticism about the Congress8217; coalition management is well known. And so is M. Karunanidhi8217;s ire with the state Congress chief8217;s 8216;8216;we will revive the party in Tamil Nadu8217;8217; theme.

And yet to conclude that the UPA experiment is coming apart or to buy L.K. Advani8217;s line that the BJP was far more faithful to the 8216;8216;coalition dharma8217;8217; than the Congress can ever be, is a trifle facile.

SUCH an argument assumes the Congress, compared to the BJP, has a more arrogant leadership, incapable of dealing with smaller allies. The problem, though, is structural. As Congress veteran Pranab Mukherjee points out, 8216;8216;The BJP has a limited presence 8212; it can have alliances with regional parties because it barely exists in large parts of India. The Congress had a presence everywhere 8230; Most of our allies have had a history of anti-Congressism and we, in turn, have had problems accepting the rise of regional parties.8217;8217;

It is this underlying dialectic 8212; the desire to regain lost space and the imperative to keep a central alliance with the help of regional players that have usurped that space 8212; that led to the 8216;8216;mess8217;8217; in Bihar and Jharkhand.

Congress state units feel the time is ripe to revive the Congress by contesting more seats on their own. But the central leadership has to meet local aspirations without damaging the arrangment in Delhi. Falling between two stools 8212; not contesting against the RJD in 109 seats and fighting it in 60 odd seats 8212; is written into the script.

But, Mukherjee insists, this doesn8217;t mean the Congress can8217;t manage coalitions. The calculations in Bihar and Jharkhand may have gone awry but the UPA is in no danger.

AICC spokesman Anand Sharma points out, 8216;8216;This government is based on the National Common Minimum Programme NCMP, there are regular consultations with allies. There is a broad consensus on policy issues.8217;8217;

THE Left does not fully agree. For it, 8216;8216;policy directions8217;8217; of the UPA government, more than political management, are the key. According to Karat, 8216;8216;We will continue to adopt an independent line. We will oppose all legislations in Parliament that we do not agree with, and which deviate from the NCMP.8217;8217;

Contrary to speculation, it is not the Left-Congress battle in West Bengal and Kerala but the 8216;8216;anti-people8217;8217; policies of the central government that may cause problems. 8216;8216;The West Bengal and Kerala assembly elections next year will not in any way condition our approach to the UPA government,8217;8217; insists Karat.

And then there is the larger concern about keeping out the 8216;8216;communal forces8217;8217;. As Karat puts it, 8216;8216;If the leopard does not change its spots, the tiger does not change its stripes either. And as far as we are concerned, the tiger is more dangerous at this stage.8217;8217;

Raghuvansh echoes the sentiment. 8216;8216;We recognise the dangers posed by the NDA at the national level. So even if we have differences in Bihar, we remain committed to the UPA at the Centre.8217;8217;

That is why the RJD has not Ram Vilas Paswan8217;s ouster from the UPA. 8216;8216;If one brick comes off the wall, the edifice will be shaken,8217;8217; Raghuvansh points out.

BESIDES both Sonia and Manmohan still enjoy a good rapport with the allies. Laloo may rail against the 8216;8216;expired medicines8217;8217; in the Congress; M. Karunanidhi may publicly attack E.V.K.S. Elangovan; Pawar may have problems with Vilasrao Deshmukh. But 8216;8216;one on one8217;8217; conversation with Sonia has so far smoothened many a ruffled feather.

At the end of the day, the success of the Congress8217; first coalition experiment depends on both personal equations and ideological imperatives. For the Left, the glue of anti-BJPism is stronger than its innate anti-Congressism, but this could change if the Congress abandons the NCMP.

For others 8212; Paswan and Shibhu Soren, DMK and PMK 8212; Sonia needs to read and re-read Dale Carnegie all the time.

And state units, Congress central leaders belatedly realise, must learn reviving the party means years of hard work on the ground. A pretty tall order that.

Congmess

In states it rules with allies 8230;

The Karnataka cauldron
AFTER the Karnataka assembly election threw up a hung house in summer 2004, the Congress and the JDS came together in the name of secularism. The excuse went down well with leaders, not party workers, some of whom are filing criminal cases against each other.

Every moment, Chief Minister Dharam Singh walks the tightrope. Once a Congress bastion, Karnataka is now shaky. The worry is the old Mysore region, where the Vokkaliga vote has been taken away by H.D. Deve Gowda and the JDS. Eight months into the coalition, there is already speculation about another election.

Trapped by populist allies 8212; Deve Gowda wants focus on villages, not IT 8212; and a confused party, Singh initially alienated industry and neglected urban development. This crippled Bangalore.

The whole exercise of cabinet expansion meant further trouble. The JDS is still unhappy over Singh not nominating its chosen ones to public boards and corporations.

While Singh has tried to keep communication lines open, he has no control over his party. JDS supremo Deve Gowda and Karnataka Congress president Janardhan Poojari regularly argue in public. Earlier this month, they both predicted midterm polls.

Things have reached a point where the Congress privately advocates an early election, Gowda faces pressure from his party colleagues to go for a showdown 8212; but is waiting for a possible revival of the 8216;8216;third front8217;8217; 8212; and governance is not quite top of the mind.

To add to it all, there8217;s the re-launch of the Samajwadi Party SP under new entrant S. Bangarappa. A possible tie-up of the SP, JDS and JDU is being spoken about. The BJP is smelling its chance. Somewhere in this swamp is the Congress.

8212; Vinay Madhav

8230; or is looking for allies 8230;

Maharashtra:
Trying to cut into the NCP8217;s Maratha vote, the Congress put up Vilasrao Deshmukh as chief minister. But Pawar has emerged as a magnet for smaller UPA allies in Delhi and is not allowing the government in Mumbai a free hand. He sees a future for his party that may not include the Congress

West Bengal:
Pranab Mukherjee has invited Mamata Banerjee over at least twice. The Trinamool leader has been offered a re-entry and, it appears, even the presidency of the state Congress. Mamata8217;s aides wonder if it8217;s a trap, to reduce her to the level of the Bengal Congress8217; other has-beens.

Uttar Pradesh:
Salman Khurshid became state unit chief vowing to take on Mulayam Singh Yadav. Nothing8217;s happened. Plans of winning over Mayawati are in doubt. For a start, the government hasn8217;t got her out of the Taj scandal. Also, will the Congress be happy as the BSP8217;s junior partner?

8230; or just wants to rule with allies

Tamil Nadu:
Central Minister E.V.K.S. Elangovan recently said the Congress wanted to be part of the next Tamil Nadu government. DMK chief M. Karunanidhi immediately threw a fit. He summoned DMK ministers back to Chennai and it took direct intervention from Sonia to mollify him. The buzz that has thegrand old man of Tamil politics worried is that the Congress will gang up with the PMK and with Vaiko, junior partners in the DMK-Congress alliance, and essentially do a Laloo on him. Congress sources insist these are only rumours and stray thoughts of a section of the party. What hasn8217;t helped is the story that key DMK ministers, such as Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran, have been less than willing to seek advise from the Congress