With the elections over, the question on the peoples mind now is: How stable is the Vajpayee government? On the plus side is the arithmetic of the 13th Lok Sabha. This time the NDA has a total of 302 MPs. There are four constituencies in Bihar still to go to polls and the Alliance hopes to win three of these. Theoretically speaking, even if the largest supporting party the TDP with its 29 members were to pull out, the government would still have a bare majority in the Lok Sabha. The situation is far better than it was in the 12th Lok Sabha. Even though the BJP has 24 allies, Vajpayee does not have to placate ones and twos like last time. He has, instead, to deal with half a dozen state bosses. From the way he constituted his cabinet, it is clear that he means to share power with them. They too have been chastened by the experience of the last six months, and are going out of their way to show that they are not out to blackmail the Prime Minister a la Jayalalitha, even as they lobbied for this or that portfolio. Of the main allies, all except the TDP face elections in their respective states in anything from five months to two years. Whether it is the JDU in Bihar, or the BJD in Orissa, or the DMK- PMK-MDMK combine in Tamil Nadu or the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, they will need the BJP. They smell power in the states and are not expected to do anything to strain their relations with the major party in the Alliance. As for the TDP, Chandrababu Naidu obviously does not want rival power centers to develop in his party, which might happen if his party MPs enter the ministry. Jayalalithas AIADMK parliamentary party almost split last year, though having witnessed the fate of both Laxmi Parvathi and Harikrishna, no TDP MP would take on Naidu easily. But then the TDP chief may not want to take any chances. He has his own agenda and will no doubt make a bid for the Delhi gaddi at some point in the future. While supporting Vajpayee he wants to maintain a distance form the BJP so as not to antagonize the minorities. In the coming months Naidu can be expected to bargain not for ministries in Delhi but for funds necessary to try and change the face of Andhra Pradesh. That could be his springboard to national politics. There is a hypothesis that were Vajpayee to falter physically, someone like Naidu could make a bid for power at the head of a Front of regional parties from the NDA and from the other side with the support of the Left and the Congress, in a replication of the United Front experiment. But given his record, Naidu will not do anything that is patchy or short term, which any alliance with Congress is likely to be, unless the party splits and one group joins the Third Front. The formal entry of Priyanka Vadra into the affairs of the Congress Party as MP from Amethi or as the president of the Youth Congress could also change equations. The greater her role, which could revive the Congress, the more the regional parties, which have Congress as their main opponent, would stick to the NDA. On the other hand her entry can also create more turmoil in the Congress and it is anybodys guess what leaders who can win their seats on their own but cannot work under her, will do. The stability of the government is, therefore linked to what happens inside the Congress also. The greater danger to Vajpayee this time could however come so much from the BJPs allies as from within the party. There are those who believe that the BJP has become larger than the RSS. That many in the Sangh Parivar, having tasted the fruits of power, would not do anything to rock the boat. That some of the BJP leaders influence the Sangh as much as the other way around. That the RSS has little option but to accept Vajpayee as the leader of a coalition government or to put the core issues of the BJP uniform civil code, Ayodhya, and Article 370 on the back burner. And that the Sangh is more interested in capturing young minds through the education system and in getting into the police force. But will the RSS which has worked for decades for the creation of Hindu Rashtra, allow Vajpayee to "Nehruvise the BJP", though the party under his leadership is on the way to becoming a right-of-Center force. He has sent clear signals by taking away the Department of Culture from Murli Manohar Joshi, remembered for the controversy over "Saraswati Vandana and rewriting the textbooks, both of which had created an uproar. Joshi is one of those who have been consistent ideologically and is identified with the RSS. A ticklish issue which will also have a bearing on the stability of the government is how the party leaderhsip deals with its units in states where its allies are strong, as in Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, and Maharashtra. The allies will not like and expansion of the BJP in these states which is bound to be at their expense. But if the party tries to rein in its state leaders, it could have a problem on its hands. And it is not beyond the realm of the impossible for disgruntled state leaders to launch their own regional outfits. After all, that is how Mamata Banerjees Trinamool Congress came into existence. For years she chafed against the Congress soft stance towards the Left so as to keep the government in Delhi going. The story of the Tamil Maanila Congress was no different. The key to the stability of the government are the three Ps the overarching presence of Atal Behari Vajpayee, powersharing and performance.
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