At the same time, no party seems to be in a position to win a clear mandate. So, coalitions are going to stay. Two scenarios appear to be within the realm of possibility. The first is that there will be no clear-cut pre-election alliances: this would allow parties to test their real power and base among different sections and regions. This would also allow them to enter into negotiations after elections in a more realistic context. While this seems to be the calculation of many parties, the trouble is that ad hoc politics and unrealistic shares in power due to coalition arithmetic have left most parties organisationally weak — a cost of coalition politics, with its disconnect from the electorate and its cynical attitude to programmes and ideologies.

Another scenario is that of the marginalisation of the so-called national parties — Congress and BJP — and the shift of the initiative towards state-level players yet again. Looking at what Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav are up to, Naveen Patnaik, Sharad Pawar and Lalu Prasad and Ramvilas Paswan have all chosen to keep their distance from the BJP and Congress and wait for the post-election scenario to develop. Very clearly, Mulayam, Lalu and Pawar want to have an upper hand in the state-level coalitions that may be finally forged, and thus in the post election negotiations. While both the NDA and UPA were forged at the initiative of the BJP and Congress respectively, and served the primary interests of these two parties, latest developments indicate that the new alliances that may emerge would have state-level parties in the driver’s position.

... contd.