Managing the triumph

Wait and watch, and work hard is the most sensible approach for the Congress party at the present juncture. It is reassuring to hear the ...

Wait and watch, and work hard is the most sensible approach for the Congress party at the present juncture. It is reassuring to hear the Congress president say so. A sound reading of the assembly election outcome would be that in backing the Congress overwhelmingly in Rajasthan and Delhi and giving it a second chance in Madhya Pradesh, voters were driven primarily but not solely by deep disenchantment with the BJP.

In these three states, the only real contest was between the Congress and the BJP. But there are also signs, such as the Samajwadi Party setback in Agra, the fall in the BSP’s share of the vote in Madhya Pradesh, the Congress gains in the Patna municipal poll, that caste-based parties are also suffering an erosion in their vote banks and popular hope of the Third Front being able to offer an alternative is fading. This taken with the Congress president’s campaign emphasis on secularism and pluralism explains why the OBC, Muslim, tribal and Dalit vote is returning to the Congress.

Thus for bothpractical reasons (bad governance, the TINA factor) and political ones (secularism, pluralism), the Congress is back in business with a vengeance. By keeping factionalism under control it has been able to make the best of its opportunities. So it has many good reasons for congratulating itself. Since nothing suceeds like success, the Congress is bound to see an accretion to its strength in the coming weeks.

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That will encourage many in the old guard to argue, more cynically than sensibly, that opportunity does not knock twice and so the Congress should push ahead with building a new coalition at the Centre. The Left and the Samajwadi also appear to be urging the same thing. There are undoubtedly partisan party considerations here. But such advice also stems from genuine concern about the consequences for the country of protracted instability at the Centre and the kind of political mobilisation which the BJP, with its back to the wall, may be inclined to attempt.

But after all that is taken into account,the sheer impracticality of it should rule out a Congres-led coalition with the constituent parties of the present Lok Sabha. The only scenario that would be worse for the country than the BJP bumbling along for a few more months would be another and eventually futile round of wheeling and dealing and shabby compromises. The country would not get the political stability it desperately needs. What appears to be a turning point for the Congress will become all too soon another slide down the slippery path to Sitaram Kesri-style manipulations bereft of principle or purpose.

Although the political scene looks promising for the Congress, there is much work to be done. Its route to a midterm poll which looks inevitable is through the states but time is not on its side for achieving its long-term aim of a majority on its own. Therefore, it will have to walk a fine line between strengthing itself at the expense of potential allies among regional parties and building bridges with them.