Commentary/ T V R Shenoy

The chaos incarnate called the United Front

Look into a mirror, and you see a perfect reproduction. Or do you? There is one vital flaw in the reflection -- left and right are reversed.

Remember that on September 21, 1997. The United Front and the Congress will snigger that the BJP and the BSP are following where they themselves led earlier this year.

After Sitaram Kesri derailed the Budget session with his antics, the United Front responded by changing the prime minister. But almost every other minister was undisturbed.

In Lucknow too there will be a change at the top when Mayawati yields to Kalyan Singh. But the other ministers shall retain their portfolios. On the face of it, then, the jibes of the Congress and the UF are justified.

But remember the metaphor of the reflection! The changeover in Lucknow is exactly the opposite of what happened in Delhi.

To begin with, I invite you to consider the motives. The UF and the Congress joined hands because it was the only way to prevent the most popular party in India from coming to power.

The BJP-BSP coalition was formed for precisely the opposite reason -- to rescue Uttar Pradesh from the undemocratic horrors of President's rule. (Which boiled down in practice to Mulayam Singh Yadav's rule!)

Second, examine the precise modality of the transfer of power from one chief executive to another. The United Front dumped Deve Gowda under pressure from the Congress -- which had forgotten all the fine talk of 'unconditional support' for a full five years.

In Uttar Pradesh there was no such hyperbole. It was clearly laid down six months ago that there would be a change on a specified date. Unlike the promise-breakers in the Congress, the BJP and the BSP kept faith with each other.

At the end of the day, all the media speculation about a rift in Uttar Pradesh was simply a case of the wish being the father of the thought. (Nobody admit it, but there is a definite anti-BJP bias in the aggressively 'secular' English media.)

Nevertheless, some good may have come from those blaring headlines. It has, I hope, made the Indian electorate focus on the larger issue of whether coalitions can ever be stable.

Chacha Kesri insists that coalition governments are inherently wobbly. Prime Minister Gujral avers that the age of single-party ministries is over. If you ask me, both are correct.

The Congress president probably had the UF in mind when he spoke of coalitions. In which case he is right -- this is definitely not 'a government that works.'

But is the UF ministry a coalition government in the first place? Not in the least!

Fortysix countries have tested the idea of coalitions. Every one of them, except India, had one thing in common -- an executive assured of an absolute majority in the respective legislature. Nowhere, again with the exception of India, was there any nonsense about 'support from outside.'

The UF is a minority government, whose MPs number barely one-third of the Lok Sabha. Let us not confuse the issue by calling this shoddy scam on democracy a coalition.

But I said that Gujral was also correct. And so he is -- if, that is, you take the record of the BJP when it comes to coalitions.

Many have described the BJP-BSP government in Uttar Pradesh an 'experiment.' It is nothing of the sort. Even as Mayawati took the oath of office, there were three other ministries where the BJP was an active partner in a coalition. The BJP is allied with the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra, the Haryana Vikas Party in Haryana, and the Akali Dal in Punjab.

Each of those coalitions rests on a secure legislative majority. And each has proved remarkably cohesive in its functioning. Yes, the BJP has had its fair share of disagreements with its coalition partners. But these were amicably resolved through give-and-take.

This contrasts painfully with the chaos incarnate called the United Front. There is no internal debate, just constant backstabbing. If you think that is an exaggeration, consider the following instances.

The Union home minister's grumbling about Deve Gowda was legendary. And Gujral has slipped into making off-the-cuff remarks on economic policy without consulting Chidambaram. Can you imagine such a breakdown between Manohar Joshi and Parkash Singh Badal with their BJP colleagues?

What we see in Delhi today is a pale reflection of a coalition. Let us not confuse it with the real articles in Bombay, Lucknow, and Chandigarh.

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