ELECTION 99
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E pluribus unum

The significance of mandate 99 is not only that it is the first time since 1971 that an incumbent government at the Centre has been re-elected.

The significance of election result 99 is not merely that Sonia Gandhi's gambit of rushing in where MPs would ordinarily fear to tread has been shown up for bunkum.

The significance of election 99 is not just that the Congress party has been put in its place with its lowest-ever tally. After all, winning and losing is part of the electoral game; after having been returned year after repetitive year, the Congress ought to learn to enjoy its stint out of power.

The significance of what we have witnessed over the last couple of days is that the voter has succeeded in getting at least one political formation to tailor its contours according to the need of the hour; the electorate has not changed and voted for the Bharatiya Janata Party. On the contrary, the voters have kept to the same parameters that they have plumped for since 1996. What has changed is the BJP -- it saw the writing on the wall that year, when it preened in its splendid isolation, and went about cobbling together just such an arrangement that reflects the diversity and plurality of India.

The genie of fragmentation of the popular vote, unleashed by Vishwanath Pratap Singh in 1990, could have been put back only in such a manner. As the brain behind this destruction of one-party mandate, I suspect that Singh also knew the answer all along: that the only way to overcome his hex is for parties to join hands in a pan-Indian pax. Don't forget, the United Front of 1996 was exactly such an arrangement; don't also forget that V P Singh was one of the backroom boys who strove hard to work out that flawed arrangement.

But just as the Bharatiya Janata Party had been one step ahead of him in 1989-90, it was ahead of him here as well. The BJP picked up the ball, and ran with it, partly successfully in 1998, and much better in 1999, with Vajpayee set to become the Y2K prime minister.

The 1996 arrangement was flawed, for one, because the largest party was only extending outside, albeit unconditional support, to the government. The flaw was also inherent in the arrangement, in that the supporting party was in an inimical position vis-à-vis the constituents of the NF. So blinded by the anti-BJP tenor of those days that the Congress failed to see the disastrous consequences on its own fortunes, especially in Uttar Pradesh.

Today, of course, the Congress has become wary of allowing any other party to feed on itself that is abhorrently opposed to the question of any tie-up in the Hindi heartland.

The BJP, however, has shown that with a little wisdom the pitfalls can be avoided, at least for some time. Tenaciously, it went about the task of earning allies for itself, and much as the tie-up with Jayalalitha is being vilified today, it is an irrefutable fact that 'decency' was conferred on the BJP from this point onwards. For despite her brush with the law, her party was in the mainstream.

The federal nature of the polity also ensures that what is an arrangement of compulsion is being glorified as a tribute to the federal nature of the polity.

Criticism against the NDA is that the arrangement suffers from inbuilt instability, but that is a fallacious argument. There is a major difference between the 12th and 13th Lok Sabhas. The difference between the ruling and opposing blocs was a handful, which was the single largest party that was supporting the government could successfully 'blackmail' the government and ultimately bring it down. In her haste to bring down the Vajpayee government, the AIADMK leader overlooked one basic fact that was evident to everyone: that the composition of the 12th Lok Sabha really did not allow an alternative formation.

The numbers in the 13th Lok Sabha are much more clearer. With just 112 members and unwilling co-members of the Lok Sabha, there is no way the Congress party can even dream of forming another government, even if the Cassandras prove right and either Chandrababu Naidu or the ex-socialists in the JD-U try some hijnks. In short, despite the difference in contours, the message from this Lok Sabha is the same as that from the previous one: either the NDA or elections.

Which, then, imposes a major responsibility on the Opposition. Through the election campaign and during the counting of votes one has heard the glib line that the Opposition's job is not to support the government but oppose it. In the 12th Lok Sabha, however, opposing was extended by a mile and the Opposition tried to trip the government at every possible chance, finally conniving with Quislings to dump an expensive, but unnecessary round of polling on the nation.

The responsibility of being different, then, will lie on the Leader of the Opposition, who may very well be the freshly elected MP from Amethi and Bellary. Through the last year or so, the nation has been full of sound bites that she lacks administrative and parliamentary experience. In fact, the people have just concluded voting on her conduct during the last year. Here is a golden chance for her to prove that she respects the popular mandate, to show that she is a serious contender for power, and that she is not merely relying on family name and fame as her tickets to power.

Sonia Gandhi's mother-in-law faced a similar situation in 1977, when she took the Congress party to its first electoral reverse. Perhaps there's a lesson in family history for Sonia, especially since she has relied on nothing but the family name in her brief stint in politics.

Saisuresh Sivaswamy