In a vote where 22 MPs of all denominations defected, 15 came from his party or its allies. In fact, each one of his important allies suffered a defection (BJD, JDU, Akalis, Shiv Sena). The Congress, on the other hand, had just one defection and its UPA allies none at all, even though they include such usual suspects as the RJD, DMK and PMK. The only real defections from the winning side came from the Samajwadi Party (six), but they were late entrants and probably had already lost most of these six by the time they switched to the UPA. Now what happened to a party like the BJP? A cadre-based, disciplined party that hung together even after the Rajiv Gandhi landslide of December 1984 when it was reduced to a strength of two? Why were his allies, all strong leaders with near-total control of their states and their parties, not able to keep their flocks together? If the politics of this session was all about fighting the next general election, could the feeling within his own party, across four states, and among his allies in four others, be that the UPA’s was a more winnable ticket?

On all evidence that would be unlikely even now. The UPA faces strong anti-incumbency across the country and even a novice in electoral politics would know that Mayawati’s emergence as the rallying point for the third front would work primarily to the detriment of the Congress, at least for now. Inflation is not about to decline dramatically and this year’s monsoon is beginning to look dodgy. In an interview with me on NDTV’s Walk the Talk last week, Chandrababu Naidu made a touching, if also shockingly cynical, slip of the tongue. When I asked him how things were for him, he said, with a smug smile: “Things are very good, really good... people have so many problems, inflation, no water.” And so on. In such a situation what incentive would be there for the BJP-NDA people to scoot while the UPA mostly stays together? That too just after a series of victories in state elections. The BJP will probably explain this disastrous performance by arguing that some of these had no hope of winning again, had lost their constituencies to delimitation, or were too old to seek re-election. All these, however, were known facts. There can be no defence for leaving their own flotsam “uncovered”.

... contd.