First, in so far as offering carrots is concerned, there is a trade-off between the UPA’s survival instincts and future electoral prospects in the states. (Incidentally, over-consumption of carrots leads to hypercarotenemia, when the skin turns orange-red, a phenomenon witnessed between May 2004 and July 7, 2008). Is the Congress failing to recognise that it is now a party of the north and west and, therefore, might as well give up UP as a lost cause? Second, is there a question of inner-party democracy and decision-making within the Congress? Why else are there splinter groups and rebels, sometimes masquerading as independents? Third, coalition politics requires skills of the wheeler-dealer kind. On the face of it, the Congress has always had mastery over this art and it can be no one’s case that the party’s senior management lacks these skills. However, the party is being outsmarted and outflanked. Is there a skill vacuum in very senior management, as opposed to senior management? Fourth, given that skill vacuum, shouldn’t elections have been called in August 2007 or on July 7, 2008? How are elections nine months from today preferable to elections three months from today? Almost certainly, inflation numbers will be more respectable nine months down the line. However, no one believes those official inflation figures and there is a perception versus reality mismatch.

And also certainly, growth numbers will be less respectable nine months down the line. A moral high ground on something like the nuclear deal and perceived proximity to the US may not have yielded much electoral dividend. But it would have been preferable to the stench and mess that emanate from the unprincipled low ground. Remember Coleridge’s “Cologne”? “I counted two and seventy stenches.” The UPA is counting two hundred and seventy-one.

... contd.