Bull's Eye

The recent AICC session accepted coalition governments as being inevitable "in the foreseeable future". Last week, former PM Vajpayee echoed the thought while releasing his book on coalition politics. He added that coalitions should not be grudged as a result of compulsions, but considered good for democracy. Like others, he too seems to confuse coalitions with federalism. That's why the phrase, that a coalition era has come to stay, is repeated ad nauseam. It is followed invariably by: "We must respect the coalition dharma." What is the coalition dharma?

When no single party has majority, two or more parties must necessarily coalesce to form a government. Certain obvious principles merit primacy in forming the ruling coalition. First, there has to be an agreed common minimum programme (CMP). Secondly, the coalition must comprise the most compatible available partners. Thirdly, the strength and composition of the coalition must ensure maximum stability.

On all three counts, the UPA and the NDA violate the coalition dharma. The coalition partners in both alliances place very different emphases on their respective versions of the CMP. Partners in both alliances are least compatible. And the composition and strength of either coalition provides only a fragile stability.

At the risk of inviting derision, even outrage, this columnist proffers a suggestion based on the principles of the coalition dharma. To form the most stable government, to coalesce the most compatible parties, and to help create the healthiest polity, there exists rationally only one coalition option. And that is a coalition of the Congress and the BJP.

No third partner would be required. Both parties together account for 284 MPs, which is a comfortable majority. They have an identical economic policy. They have an identical foreign policy. Both parties, compared to others, enjoy a greater measure of discipline. That would encourage stability. There is, of course, the debate about communalism vs secularism. But how much of it is polemics, and how much substance? Communalism and secularism should be measured by conduct, not by words. Neither party has hesitated to unleash genocide against minorities for perceived wrongs and for getting votes. When it comes to the crunch, the Congress adopts soft Hindutva instead of outright opposition to communalism.

A Congress-BJP coalition would give India a stable government. More important, it would end the artificial two-coalition divide and create space for the emergence of a genuine national alternative. It is an arrangement that would benefit the Congress, the BJP, the opposition and the nation. Think.

(Puri can be reached at rajinderpuri2000@yahoo.com)