Over the course of this much awaited Thursday, the electronic voting machines will spill their secrets. As the day unfolds, so will a picture of the Fourteen Lok Sabha crystallise. In the hours since voting in Elections 2004 closed on May 10, political leaders have withdrawn to closed-door parleys with colleagues and even adversaries, emerging every so often to offer cryptic answers on the contours of the coalitions they are attempting to stitch up. Today they will know the numbers that they can leverage. Today, too, they must begin to share the outlines of the agendas for governance that underpin the political realignments that may be — that, it could be argued, are — on the cards.In this election the two main political parties have rather giddily picked up and dropped electoral partners. As the wisdom of pre-poll arithmetic is affirmed or falsified, they must solemnise any bid for power with a transparent common minimum programme. This year the Congress made the strongest reconciliation with coalition politics in its largely isolationist history. In Bihar, it ceded the large majority of seats to Laloo Prasad Yadav’s RJD to consolidate the anti-NDA vote. In Tamil Nadu, it buried old antagonisms and sewed up a multi-party alliance in an attempt to outflank the AIADMK-BJP tie-up. In Andhra Pradesh assembly polls, it has already reaped the benefits of an understanding with the Telangana Rashtra Samiti. In Uttar Pradesh, no pre-poll arrangement fructified with the Samajwadi Party or the BSP — but either of these parties is considered a viable post-poll ally. The BJP has, of course, shed more allies than it has gained. Yet, suddenly names of all those parties are being bandied about as possible partners in any attempt the NDA may make to return to power.The results will confirm which of the two got its calculations right. Yet, those bald numbers would reek of cynicism and opportunism if they do not coalesce into an agenda for governance. Coalitions are a meeting ground for diverse social, economic and administrative visions. To reflect this for the larger common good, it is necessary that an alliance seeking to form the next government negotiate its common minimum programme seriously and graciously. For the Congress, this would be a new experiment at the Centre. For the BJP, it would be an exercise necessitated by the considerable change in the NDA’s composition in recent weeks. This would be good not just for governance. It is a requisite for political stability. It’s time the visionaries shared space with the kingmakers.
