Concurrence, cooperation and considerateness: these could be considered the three crucial C’s supporting coalitions. Take out one and the coalitional edifice collapses. These preconditions work as much for political coalition as for the social ones. It is surprising that the Left parties, which have adhered to these mantras so adroitly in West Bengal despite the CPM gaining absolute majority in the assembly on its own, have chosen to be undiplomatically belligerent in relating to the UPA government. Having only one-fifth of the UPA strength and providing only ‘outside’ support, the Left Front has aggressively opposed the government on a number of policy issues in a bid to dictate policies and politics of the ruling coalition from the opposition space.

Coalition politics in India has been a confounding experience. The Congress party provided stable one-party rule by being all things to all people. It then gave in to the politics of personality, which demanded ideological homogenising and individual aggrandisement at the cost of plurality of leadership. The 1977-1980 period saw an unsuccessful experiment with an umbrella coalition of the ‘Janata’ kind, with every constituent working at cross-purposes even though they had come together with a common objective and understanding.

The 1990s will be remembered for the experimentation with the phenomenon of outside support — giving the outside supporter power and influence, but not responsibility. The Congress Party, which invented the ‘outside support’ formula, pulled down the Janata Party government by luring away and deceiving a gullible Charan Singh in 1979. It played the same game again in 1990 to pull down V.P. Singh’s National Front government by flirting with Chandrashekhar. In each case, the outside supporter was bigger than the ruling coalition. This was repeated again in 1996-98, when the Congress supported the United Democratic Front governments of H.D. Deve Gowda and I.K. Gujral. The Left has now borrowed that model. It takes advantage of its ‘outside support’ to the UPA to consolidate itself by asserting its veto on a variety of issues.

... contd.