Advantage BJP

That rift never happened, thanks largely to one unlikely individual who put propriety before political expediency. In many ways, Home Minister Indrajit Gupta is a political oddball. A veteran Oxbridge communist, Gupta combines his waning radicalism with a fierce commitment to parliamentary politics. Apart from displaying a certain aesthetic repugnance to the political culture of the Hindi heartland, Gupta was clear that he could not be forced to act against his conscience. At the cabinet meeting, he made it clear that if the collective decision was in favour of pressing on with President's rule it would become very embarrassing for him to continue in office. "This issue has been debated at length in the Inter-State Council of which I am the chairman. I cannot possibly face it if we go ahead," he said. Confronted by taunts from Mulayam and other SP ministers about being soft on the BJP and encouraging communalism, Gupta responded in his usual acerbic style: "It is a bit sad that at this stage of my life I need to take a certificate about my commitment to fighting communalism. That remains as strong as ever, but so does my commitment to the democratic process."

Gupta's misgivings were echoed by the regional parties. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi came out publicly against the use of Article 356 and Telugu Desam Party Minister Yerran Naidu took umbrage that the Government was caving in to Congress pressure. "Why should we be taking orders from the Congress?" he asked. Even West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu felt compelled to snub his Politburo member Sitaram Yechuri, who was one of the most vociferous in demanding Kalyan's dismissal. Basu's curt advice to Mulayam was: stop behaving like a child.

The controversy over Uttar Pradesh has come as a rude shock to the regional parties who view Article 356 as the most devilish clause in the Constitution. The manner in which the Congress and SP were willing to subvert the Constitution for immediate gains has created fissures in the UF. The Congress is the biggest loser in the new climate of suspicion and disgust. Apart from showing Kesri as vengeful and reckless, the Congress' conduct has proved that the party has not really mended its ways and remains wedded to the centralising arbitrariness of the past. This renewed realisation is certain to put a big question mark on Kesri's apparent bid to forge an alliance with some regional parties in the next election.

For most of the parties south of the Vindhyas, the BJP is a notional entity. Their main antagonist is the Congress which won a total of 34 Lok Sabha seats in the four southern states, including 22 in Andhra Pradesh. If the Congress continues to suffer from an attitudinal problem on the question of federalism, the regional parties could explore other avenues. Last week's divisions in the Cabinet showed that the SP and a section of the JD are more in tune with the Congress than the tdp, dmk and Tamil Maanila Congress. In short, anti-Congressism is more potent in the south than in the north, where the BJP has emerged as the dominant party. If Kalyan lets Ayodhya recede into the archives of Uttar Pradesh, it is conceivable that the southern parties could find that anti-Congressism is more potent as electoral and post-election alliances than abstract secularism. Which may be why neither Vajpayee nor Advani is dismissing the possibility of another shy at government formation in the lifetime of this Lok Sabha.

Of course, any talk of electoral adjustment is still premature. The BJP's strength in the south and even the east is very uneven. To be seriously regarded as a worthwhile partner in an anti-Congress venture, the party must either gain ground independently, as has happened in Orissa and Karnataka, or benefit from splits in other parties.

In any case, the signs are not encouraging for Kesri. The Congress president gives the impression of being in another of his wild moods, not because Kalyan remains in power, but because the BJP has walked away with a clear majority of Congress MLAs in India's largest state. In electoral terms, the Congress may be a bit player in Uttar Pradesh, its future prospects dependent on either Mulayam or BSP supremo Kanshi Ram. However, Uttar Pradesh continues to play a disproportionate role in the internal affairs of the Congress. Kesri's hopes of leading the party back to power in Delhi and breaking the stranglehold of coalition politics depends considerably on good performance in the Hindi heartland. With the departure of 22 of the 37 MLAs to the saffron camp, Kesri is left with a rump. Not only that, his clumsy handling of the crisis ended with him looking silly. A fortnight ago, the mood in the Congress was distinctly upbeat with senior leaders talking in terms of an early election and the party winning some 200 seats. In being intransigent on the question of Kalyan's dismissal, Kesri was also hoping to bolster his "secular" credentials with the Muslim voters of north India. After last week's humiliation, the Congress is no longer sure.

The Uttar Pradesh debacle is certain to diminish Kesri's negotiating clout with the SP and BSP. More important, it will make Congressmen vulnerable to BJP inducements in future. If the Loktantrik Congress enters into a happy partnership with the BJP, it will be the signal for other Congressmen to suddenly discover the hidden virtues of Vajpayee and Advani. Kesri just cannot let this happen. At the same time, he cannot risk an early general election, which the party neither wants nor is prepared for. Vajpayee is quite categorical on this score: "If Kesri tries to pull down the UF, his own partymen will pull him down. I do not rule out a split in the Congress if he does so. Some Congressmen may choose to continue supporting the Government. Some may even come across to the BJP. No Congress MP is ready to face elections." Ironically, Vajpayee's view is endorsed by Kesri's new right-hand man Pranab Mukherjee. "We do not want to withdraw support because most of the members of the Lok Sabha do not want its dissolution." In a nutshell, this means that the Congress is likely to persist with its politics of extortion until it is in a position to face the election.

As of now, only the BJP seems in a position to gain from the Uttar Pradesh fallout and the confusion in the Congress. For a start, the entire episode has allowed the party to claw its way back to respectability. Vajpayee's moving "farewell" speech as 13-day prime minister was, of course, the first step in removing the party's post-December 6, 1992, untouchability status. With his deft handling of the Uttar Pradesh crisis -- at a time when Vajpayee was not in the country -- Advani too has taken a few decisive steps towards reclaiming his benign "A.K. Hangal face" that was lost during the 1990 Ram rath yatra. True, some of this past week's shine was lost in the images of BJP members retaliating with equal ferocity in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly. Yet, for the political classes there is a positive dimension to the determination with which the entire party -- even Vajpayee was constantly in touch -- rallied around Kalyan and reclaimed Uttar Pradesh for saffron.

Much of the gains centre on coalition-building, the new buzzword of political India. Last year, the BJP demonstrated its complete ineptitude by not being able to secure a single post-election ally during Vajpayee's brief tenure. The same story was repeated when H.D. Deve Gowda's government was pulled down by the Congress in May this year -- although, to be fair, the BJP never really tried to stake its claim. Kalyan's success in party-breaking marks a new chapter in BJP's political flexibility. So far, only Shekhawat was credited with the skills of political manoeuvring and this was attributed to his non-rss background. With Kalyan, a former rss pracharak and a self-confessed hardliner, talking the language of accommodation and actually winning new friends, it would seem that the Vajpayee line of non-confrontationist politics is yielding results. In 1991, Advani spoke in terms of the BJP's "majestic isolation". Today, the same Advani is insisting that "a vast area of governance has nothing much to do with ideology". Instead of highlighting the BJP's "distinctiveness", he is now talking of a "common programme in which the core of our ideological thrust should be preserved". Likewise, where Vajpayee once spoke of "principled politics" that involved not encouraging defections, today Advani hosts Naresh Agarwal and his happy band of 21 Congress defectors for tea at his Delhi residence. The BJP has obviously come a long way from being "a party with a difference".

Whether the new approach has made an impression on the public can only be tested if there is a snap election. Advani believes that there are undercurrents of a pro-BJP wave. Opinion polls indicate the phenomenal personal popularity of Vajpayee, which will certainly help the BJP if it opts for an aggressive presidential-style campaign. Certainly, there is some dissatisfaction in the country at the political drift and the absence of firm decision-making. The makings of a Vajpayee wave are all there. But can it take the BJP and its existing allies over the hump? It is unlikely that the party can better its 1996 performance in Uttar Pradesh, where it won 52 of the 85 seats. In fact, Kalyan will now have to devote his energies to ensuring that Mayawati, Mulayam and the Congress do not enter into an alliance.

In Madhya Pradesh, where it bagged 27 of the 40 seats, the BJP will have to break new ground and keep its fingers crossed against a Congress-BSP alliance. The BJP and its allies can realistically hope to make further inroads into Bihar, where Laloo Prasad Yadav's image has been seriously dented. In Karnataka, where the party tally in the Lok Sabha rose from four in 1991 to six in 1996, the BJP can hope to take advantage of the chaotic conditions in the JD. And in Maharashtra, where the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance won 33 of the 48 seats, the prospects are actually more encouraging if local poll results are anything to go by.

Confidential reports prepared for the leadership estimate a possible tally of 200 seats for the BJP and another 40 for existing allies. This would still leave the alliance just short of the magic 270 mark. Last week, after Uttar Pradesh, the BJP leadership may have got the first real inkling of how to bridge the deficit. As Vajpayee put it cryptically, "In just four days, the political equations in the country have dramatically changed."

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