A surer recipe for mutual distrust cannot be conjured, where each is watching the other's moves carefully and sometimes even choosing to replicate them. So when Jayalalitha gets a cold, several others go into paroxysms of sneezing. When she demands the dismissal of a state government, several others queue up to make the same demand. The BJP may present a brave front on this confusion and tell waiting mediapersons that there is ``no political uncertainty'', but the strain is clearly showing.

There wereseveral areas of concern about Saturday's event. For one, there was no attempt to dispel the shadow caused by Jayalalitha's enigmatic absence that hung over the committee meeting and, indeed, the Vajpayee government. The fact was that even if Jayalalitha was ill, there was nothing stopping her from deputing someone to represent her at the meeting as Hedge, for instance, did.

That she did not choose to do so, was clearly meant as a rebuff to Vajpayee, who had personally communicated with her on the proposed meeting. By pretending that this was normal behaviour on the part of a political ally, the BJP was only displaying its own helplessness, its patent inability to beard the lioness in her den. Then again the meeting displayed the anxiety of coalition partners to garner benefits and concessions for their own narrow, political ends rather than for the greater good of the nation. No one seemed too keen to do a spot of stocktaking on the experience of 100 days of governance or dwell on vital questions such ashow the government can be made more accountable to the people.

Instead, sectarian issues tended to dominate the proceedings, with the Samata Party renewing its dismiss-Rabri government call, the BJD demanding a package for Orissa, and the Haryana Vikas Party coming up with a completely new demand the waiver of loans worth Rs 2,500 crore. By ignoring national issues, these 13 parties carelessly frittered away an opportunity to demonstrate to the nation their abilities of ruling as a cohesive force at the Centre.

This newspaper had argued in favour of a coordination committee for expediting smoother relations among the disparate political entities that comprise the ruling coalition. But if Saturday's performance is anything to go by, the ruling party had better scrap the institution altogether or prepare to be permanently embarrassed by its functioning. The next meeting of the panel has been fixed for mid-August. It can only be hoped that it will be less of a farce than this one proved to be.