Imponderables make a super hot 2019 LS polls too close to call

Chennai: While the Indian National Congress, as a party of the freedom movement has all along been an ‘implicit coalition’ of various class, caste, religious and linguistic interests, ‘explicit coalition’- different parties with ideological differences coming together in a broad alliance either pre-poll or post-poll- saw its first ‘avatar’ in the V P Singh-led National Front government in 1989. Three decades hence, in the midst of crucial general elections to the Lok Sabha, to be able to revisit the history of how ‘coalition governments’ has evolved, its nuanced assimilative shades in the people’s quest to ward off political instability at the Centre, until the 2014 LS polls, which by giving a simple majority to the BJP virtually ended the coalition era, is an unenviable task. A very significant point the author makes is till 1999, the earlier coalitions, propped up with either Congress or BJP plus Left parties support, were all relatively brief, barring the P V Narasimha Rao-led Congress government with support of AIADMK and a few other parties outside; though until then regional parties were already beginning to play a key role in government formations at the Centre, Saba argues that it was the NDA under Vajpayee’s six-year reign, which was “truly representative of the federal nature of India.” Vajpayee presided over “that significant time in contemporary Indian history when the BJP ended what was called its ‘untouchability’ and it was Vajpayee’s reputation and personal conduct that made it possible for regional parties to flock to the BJP,” says the author. It was actually “an assertion of single party rule, although technically it was still an alliance.” And the aggressive brand Narendra Modi-Amit Shah combine had no qualms about cutting into the social base of regional parties, which has made a big difference to the ‘coalition’ concept.