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Professional BJP baiters may call the BJP-BSP alliance in Uttar
Pradesh an opportunistic one. But there will be few takers for
such a formulation. On the contrary, large sections of the state's
populace, as also democratic opinion in the rest of the country,
are likely to welcome the arrangement. Ms Mayawati of the BSP will
head the coalition government for the first six months, to be
followed by a BJP nominee in the chief executive's office. The
unprecedented rotational arrangement, which possibly broke the
long-standing deadlock over which party will call the shots in the
governing coalition, will be reviewed thereafter. Any
misapprehensions on that score will, however, be offset by the fact
that the arrangement has the blessings of the RSS '. The latter
sees it as a necessary instrumentality to strengthen Hindu society
by integrating the dalits.
The arrangement also serves to underline that India has entered
into an era of coalitions. But it hardly behoves the 13-party
ruling coalition at the Centre to point an accusing finger at the
BJP-BSP alliance on the ground that they were not electoral
partners during the assembly elections in October, 1996. For, many
of the UF constituents had fought the last Lok Sabha elections
separately and against each other only to make common cause for
forming the government. To its chagrin, the continuation of Mr
Romesh Bhandari as the UP governor and the perception it engendered
that Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav was ruling by proxy have facilitated to
bring together the two parties, notwithstanding the substantive
ideological gap separating them.
While wishing the BJP-BSP experiment success, it is hoped that the
two partners would have learned some lessons from the earlier
failed marriage that lasted four and a half months. Ideological
rhetoric apart, including the BJP's Hindutva and BSP's agenda of
social transformation, the crying need of UP is a governance that
can crack down ruthlessly on crime and corruption. The people will
take care of the rest. The new ruling alliance will have earned
popular goodwill in abundant measure if it manages to demonstrate
the necessary will and dexterity to banish the twin evils from the
socio-political life of the state.
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