A coalition will be a complicated affair

After the election result comes out on May 16, it will be time to wonder whether we will have a UPA-3 or an NDA-2. Of course, it is going to be a matter of numbers in the end. That’s pretty obvious. The surprise, therefore, is that political parties make a public show of announcing that they are romping home on their own, without prospective allies. If that were indeed to happen, we would be turning on its head the political logic of the coalition era in Indian politics which was inaugurated a quarter century ago.

The BJP has taken the lead in talking itself up, in suggesting through its public comments that the party will have the numbers to form the next government pretty much on its own. This is more devious than bravado. It is an attempt to give the fence-sitting voter the feeling that he must swing with the party that is going to give us a stable government more or less on its own steam, without having to hunt for allies.

The BJP has run such a high-gear campaign that ordinary folks may be forgiven if they fall for the party’s trick of declaring itself supreme. However, when Congress party managers try to make a similar claim (of being able to cross the halfway mark in Parliament without post-poll allies), they are not likely to find many gullible souls who would believe what looks patently hard to achieve.

It was, therefore, perfectly credible when Ahmed Patel, the political secretary to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, suggested in a recent observation that the Congress would be ready to make any sacrifice to keep “communal forces” — the BJP — at bay. This was quite rightly read as the Congress getting ready to back a “secular” state party if this would keep the BJP out of government. To many, this does not seem far from the realm of the probable. This is why Mr Patel was not exactly believed when he amended his observation a day later to say that his party was going to come up trumps on its own.

If compulsions of the coalition era are a reality that cannot be brushed aside, we can be certain that forming the next ruling coalition may turn out to be a complicated affair as both the Congress and the BJP begin to compete for the uncertain affections of state parties, almost all of which can claim to be “secular”. The BJP is likely to have an edge in this game as many expect it to win more seats than the Congress. However, the Congress should have an advantage over the BJP in another respect — it may be more amenable to backing a regional party than the latter.