For far too long, the vigour and transformative energies of India’s democracy have been sapped by the phony ideological divide between “secular” and “communal” parties. On the one hand, this divide has been used by the Congress and communist parties to preserve their Muslim votebank without in any serious way trying to improve the lot of ordinary Muslims. On the other hand, the Congress-Left combine has time and again tried to use this divide to keep a large number of parties away from the BJP. This is what they did in 1996, when, in spite of the BJP winning the largest number of seats (162) in the Lok Sabha, they prevented Atal Bihari Vajpayee from forming a government. This patently anti-democratic effort, though temporarily successful, met its doom in 1998 and 1999, when the formation of the two BJP-led NDA governments created a big breach in the citadel of “secular politics”. The voters will want a similar fissure created again in 2009. In other words, the Congress-Left combine, which has built an entire ideology justifying political untouchability towards the BJP, could be in for a shock.

In NDTV’s Big Fight debate last week, I said, quoting L.K. Advani’s oft-repeated affirmation, that “if untouchability in the social sphere is wrong, it is equally wrong in the political sphere”. The anchor, visibly taken aback by my statement, asked: “Do you then mean that the Congress is not untouchable for the BJP?” I said, “No.” “Will the BJP ever agree to work together with the Congress?” he shot back. My answer: “Since we do not consider the Congress to be untouchable, the BJP will have no objection to working together with the Congress if national interests demand at some time in the future.” There was a big applause from the audience, a sure confirmation that the people of India want political parties to shun the tu-tu-main-main mentality and internalise the “tu and main” culture.

... contd.