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What makes NDA tick?

"I would like the vice-president to resign from his office and become the prime minister." This was what former president Venkataraman told me when the country was looking for a leader who could head a viable coalition. This was about 10 years ago. Shankar Dayal Sharma was the then the vice-president.

"We should think of a system whereby the prime minister, once elected, is allowed to complete his five-year term," were the words of prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, then in the opposition. He too could not envisage a situation where the government would be above the blackmail of capricious MPs.

Government those days rose and fell so quickly that India began to be compared with France and Italy of old times when there were bets on how long a government would last in the later half of the nineties. Delhi saw four governments in three years with as many elections.

Political conditions or, to put it more bluntly, political configurations, have today changed so vastly that even gossip-sheets have stopped writing about the exit of the Vajpayee government. It looks as if the BJP or, at least, Vajpayee looks irreplaceable. The NDA may not have done anything spectacular, but it does not show any chink. The outburst by Defence Minister George Fernandes against economic reforms should not be taken too seriously. He made a fervent case in defence of the Morarji Desai government, but resigned from the same government the following day.

Some parties in the NDA -- there are as many as 24 -- may voice their differences with the major partner, the BJP, on the slashing of subsidies or the raising of essential commodities' price. But the criticism remains at such a low key that it is 'managed' even before it hits headlines.

The two main factors which have strengthened the BJP-led government are: one, the absence of an alternative and two, the BJP's appreciation of the coalition politics. It is difficult to say which of the two has helped the government more to stay in office. But the situation would have been different if Sonia Gandhi, president of the other major party, the Congress, had posed a challenge or if the BJP had behaved in the same manner as it did when it fell after being 13 days in office.

When the opposition parties united to throw out the Vajpayee government by one vote, it was the most opportune time to forge unity. Ideological concurrence in the wake of Babri Masjid's demolition could have become the basis of an alternative. Both the Congress and the Communists bungled and destroyed the unity. The Communists are more to blame because they tried to put the Congress in the gaddi exclusively. True, Sonia Gandhi wanted it that way. But they could have explained to her that some of the non-BJP parties, which had, fought the Congress all their life, had come round to support her to stall the BJP. The Communists should not have pressurised them to forego participation in the government.

Expecting them to give up their share in the government was like asking them to wear sackcloth. It was misreading the dialectics of power. Indeed, power politics has been a salient feature of governance at the Centre since the Congress split in 1969. After all, Indira Gandhi, then the prime minister went over the process because she wanted to corner power. She did so. Power, not principal, has become the end from those days.

Still the Congress, if not the third front, could have been an alternative. And at one time it looked as if Sonia Gandhi, an influential figure as the saree-clad widow of Rajiv Gandhi, would take the country by storm. But her Italian nationality came in the way. Also, the novelty disappeared when she occupied the stage. There was a feeling of letdown when she would read from the podium a short, prepared speech in English. She was accepted as the Congress president but not as India's prime minister.

Yet an opportunity came Sonia Gandhi's way. She failed to muster the 272 members she said she had as supporters when the president invited her to make the claim good. Her mistake was that she imagined that her promise to give a secular government would keep the flock together. She refused to share power and that was her undoing.

The NDA's second strength is the BJP's realisation that it is coalition politics which will work in the country for years to come. The party has kept aside all the contentious issues like the Ram temple, the common civil code and Article 370 giving special status to Jammu and Kashmir. The RSS, BJP's mentor, has been able to silence the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal on these subjects.

There is also an understanding among the BJP ministers not to take any decision relating to a state without consulting the ally in the region. For example, Home Minister L K Advani made it clear the other day to a Sikh delegation that he would not act on their demand without consulting Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal. The same holds good for Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra Pradesh, Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal, Karunanidhi in Tamilnadu and Navin Patnaik in Orissa.

More than that, the BJP does not allow differences to grow between the party and its allies. When Mamata Banerjee made a specific number of seats for her Trinamul Congress in local body elections in West Bengal an issue, she had her way. Vajpayee intervened to stave off the crisis.

In the face of such tactics by the BJP, the Congress, the Communists and other parties outside the NDA, are thinking how to challenge the government. There is nothing wrong about it. But, the surprising part is that many are missing Indira Gandhi and that too at a time when the authoritarian rule she imposed on the country through the emergency will be 25 years old this June. Her rough and ready methods to pull down the Janata Party government are recalled. It only reflects a state of helplessness. It also indicates that the Third Front is only a pious hope.

Still, however placid the profile of the NDA, a wrong impression of solidarity is being spread by the BJP leaders. Beneath the surface, there is discontent because of over-posturing of some BJP ministers and over-saffronising of their activities. A few NDA constituents say that they are willing to quit. Their predicament is that there is no rallying point, within the NDA or without.

The Congress is diminishing day by day or facing a crisis of confidence as the Congress Sandesh, the party's journal, puts it. On the other hand, there is very little hope of the Third Front emerging, whatever the efforts by West Bengal chief minister Jyoti Basu. The very idea has lost its appeal.

The real danger that the Vajpayee government faces is on the economic front. Poverty is increasing and so is unemployment. Inflation is around 7 per cent, three times more than a few months ago. Economic reforms are being targeted for the situation. The opposition parties, except the Congress, want to build up an agitation against globalisation. But, ironically, they find that the only organisation which feels as strongly on the subject as they do is the RSS. Then how do they build an alternative?

Kuldip Nayar