The coalition era began full blast in 1996 when the initially minority Congress government, headed by the wily P.V. Narasimha Rao, surprisingly completed its full term of five years but was thrashed in the general election. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who later earned kudos for keeping a motley crowd of 24 coalition partners together for five years, had a bad beginning as prime minister. His first government turned out to be a 13-day wonder, after which the United Front, calling itself the third force, came to power under the leadership of the humble farmer H.D. Deve Gowda, who apparently believed that India was a remote district of Karnataka. Since the UF government could not last a minute without the Congress support, the once grand old party merrily pulled the plug — first on Gowda and then on Inder Kumar Gujral.

Atalji formed his second government in March 1998. It collapsed a month after celebrating its first anniversary because the imperious and weighty lady of Tamil Nadu, J. Jayalalithaa, withdrew support on account of the Union government’s inability to withdraw corruption cases against her. These cases were filed, interestingly, by M. Karunanidhi’s government in the state, whose party, the DMK, became a part of the Vajpayee-led coalition that took power after the 1999 elections. (Today, the DMK is part of the UPA.) One minister in the Vajpayee cabinet, who forced the government to ‘roll back’ a series of its decisions, was Mamata Banerjee of the Trinamool Congress. Ram Vilas Paswan was also a cabinet minister then, though he resigned after the Gujarat riots in 2002. He, too, is ensconced in the Manmohan Singh cabinet.

... contd.