The Congress could justifiably derive satisfaction from the disrepair in the BJP camp. The decline became pronounced after the party's inability to extract political mileage from the November 26 Mumbai attacks. Nagpur has not helped. The communal soufflé is simply not rising. Witness the voter's exemplary sense of balance in the outcome of the elections in Delhi, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. Governance superceded emotive issues. Efforts at raising issues like terror, particularly against the backdrop of Mumbai, came a cropper partly because some of its own affiliates had been found with their hand in the terror till in Malegaon. That case is still being investigated. Within the BJP there is an apparent lack of conviction that L.K. Advani is the most suitable candidate to be projected as Prime Minister. His acceptance of a lifetime– achievement award from a TV network projects him as someone having played his innings. It is a sunset image. Narendra Modi is the darling of the Corporate World but not of NDA allies who need Muslim votes antagonized by Modi. Corporate adoration for Modi deserves to be understood and amplified. Bhairon Singh Shekhawat is out to maul the former BJP chief minister, Vasundhara Raje, for corruption and worse. And there are stalwarts in the BJP willing to give him a willing hand. Then there is the extraordinary spectacle of the Hindu Morality Sena in Mangalore chasing girls from bars, separating men from women, and Muslims from all. The 18th century street poet, Jafar Zatalli could well have been writing about Mangalore: “Run fast from this city, O Zatalli, otherwise they will catch you by the beard and shake your head off.” Gingering up the proceedings is Union Minister Renuka Choudhry, keeping up a relentless prattle against the morality brigade, risking a taint of license on her own impeccable persona. Will this unflattering picture of the BJP result in a Congress triumph in the Lok Sabha elections in April – May? That would be a hasty conclusion. It is elementary that neither the Congress nor the BJP can in the foreseeable future come to power on their own. The BJP's capacity to weave coalitions is suspect because of its exclusivist image. Atal Behari Vajpayee, alas, is not available. Also, only a party with potential for victory attracts allies. Even though the Congress, on balance, looks like a credible leader of the UPA, the UPA itself is not looking like a winner. Babri Masjid has ceased to be an issue. But there is no political masonry available to build the Congress architecture after it collapsed following the fall of the mosque in 1992. And this happened on P.V. Narasimha Rao's watch. P.V. returned with 140 seats in a house of 543, the lowest the Congress has ever registered. Since then under the Party Presidentship of Sitaram Kesari or Sonia Gandhi the congress has never won more than 145 seats. That it is in power is because it leads the UPA which had unusual numbers accruing to it from Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu – 30 and 20 seats. There is a huge question mark on these figures being repeated this time. Even if one is inclined to be generous to the UPA the AP+TN returns for the UPA will atleast be halved. Jayalalita, on the other hand, like Chandrababu Naidu in AP has held Karat's hand. Karat, in the meanwhile has announced that he could well end up supporting a progressive group, should numbers dictate such a course after the election. Samajwadi Party's Amar Singh is leaving no stone unturned to sow up alliances. Even the Left is not outside his target range. But the Left will not be seen anywhere near Kalyan Singh, SP's ally. Is this alliance custom made for the Congress in a state to which Rahul Gandhi has dedicated himself? Mayawati is dangerous with or without her wings clipped. With 60 seats she could fly; with 30 she could augment the third front. Above all, who knows how the standoff with Pakistan is likely to play itself out. Can controlled tension be sustained for two more months? Different decibel levels on Pakistan emanating from the NSA, M.K. Narayanan, Defence Minister A.K. Antony, Home Minister, P. Chidambaram and, of course, External Affairs Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, have the potential of causing rifts in the heat of electoral battle. Mukherjee will drift towards the Left leaving Mamta Bannerjee crying on Mohsina Kidwai's shoulders, who is incharge of Bengal for the Congress. The endgame pre-and post-election could be messy for the major formations. Since Pranab has reached as high as he could under Sonia Gandhi's supervision, he could well be cast in a heroic mode if he carves his own path within the Congress now, otherwise his future is, well, more of the same, Khamsa, Khamsi!
