From the year 1996 India as a country has been seeing coalition governments at the center. No one has been able to get absolute majority. Any party which gets 160+ is see as victorious, unless it is led by a certain Narendra Modi (who cannot find new friends to take him past the half way mark).
What I would like to talk about today is list out some of the contradictions in the coalitions that are formed.
Tamil Nadu - TN is a strange example where we have had Left and Congress fighting elections together even thought they oppose each other every where else including the neighboring Kerala where they lead the two large coalitions in the state. We have had DMK a so called revolutionary party allying with BJP during the 1999 elections. DMK leader who calls an Hindu a thief and allies with a predominantly Hindu party. TMC the party which was formed opposing the Narasimha Rao's decision to ally with ADMK formed an alliance with the same ADMK in 1999.
Kerala - We have had coalition governments for a long time in the state. It is really peculiar where we see splinter groups of congress in the left alliance and the other way around also.
J&K - PDP whose leader Mehbooba Mufti who doesn't mind questioning Indian government's authority in J&K allies with a nationalist BJP. We also had the NC which derives its support from the muslims in Kashmir allying with BJP (they were mutually exclusive which helped them in winning though).
Maharashtra - We had the NCP which was formed against the foreigner's influence (read Sonia Gandhi) in the Congress party allying with the same Congress.
Puducherry - We have the NR Congress which runs the government with the support of Congress. NR Congress was formed when N Rangaswamy came out of the Congress.
Delhi - We have the AAP running the show with Congress's support, the very party which it claimed as untouchable.
In the upcoming elections
BJP wants to ally with MDMK, PMK, etc. The two leading parties of TN have not shown any interest in allying with them. MDMK and PMK are known to be LTTE supporters and it will be fun to see Subramaniam Swamy (the new entrant of BJP) who is a known LTTE baiter sharing space together. MDMK has already said that the Sethusamuduram project has to be reassessed for the environmental issues.
BJP which has been claiming that they are clean and only Congress is corrupt also wants to ally with INLD led by Om Prakash Chouthala (who is currently in jail on corruption charges).
Congress is also not far behind, their VP wants to project a clean image but they are also harboring ambitions of allying with RJD led by Laloo Prasad (who is just out on bail after being convicted in one of the fodder scam cases).
Cliches when it comes to Coalitions
To justify all these contradictions the politicians have their own set of cliches
1) There are no permanent enemies or friends in politics
2) There are no untouchables in politics
3) This is just an election alliance and not based on ideology
The only thing that we have not seen is the Congress and BJP allying together somewhere or Left allying with BJP. Heard that left is keen on allying with a BJP splinter, so we might actually get to see that also.
As a famous Goundamani dialogue in a tamil movie "arasiyala edhu ellam satharanam appa"(everything goes in politics)..
What I would like to talk about today is list out some of the contradictions in the coalitions that are formed.
Tamil Nadu - TN is a strange example where we have had Left and Congress fighting elections together even thought they oppose each other every where else including the neighboring Kerala where they lead the two large coalitions in the state. We have had DMK a so called revolutionary party allying with BJP during the 1999 elections. DMK leader who calls an Hindu a thief and allies with a predominantly Hindu party. TMC the party which was formed opposing the Narasimha Rao's decision to ally with ADMK formed an alliance with the same ADMK in 1999.
Kerala - We have had coalition governments for a long time in the state. It is really peculiar where we see splinter groups of congress in the left alliance and the other way around also.
J&K - PDP whose leader Mehbooba Mufti who doesn't mind questioning Indian government's authority in J&K allies with a nationalist BJP. We also had the NC which derives its support from the muslims in Kashmir allying with BJP (they were mutually exclusive which helped them in winning though).
Maharashtra - We had the NCP which was formed against the foreigner's influence (read Sonia Gandhi) in the Congress party allying with the same Congress.
Puducherry - We have the NR Congress which runs the government with the support of Congress. NR Congress was formed when N Rangaswamy came out of the Congress.
Delhi - We have the AAP running the show with Congress's support, the very party which it claimed as untouchable.
In the upcoming elections
BJP wants to ally with MDMK, PMK, etc. The two leading parties of TN have not shown any interest in allying with them. MDMK and PMK are known to be LTTE supporters and it will be fun to see Subramaniam Swamy (the new entrant of BJP) who is a known LTTE baiter sharing space together. MDMK has already said that the Sethusamuduram project has to be reassessed for the environmental issues.
BJP which has been claiming that they are clean and only Congress is corrupt also wants to ally with INLD led by Om Prakash Chouthala (who is currently in jail on corruption charges).
Congress is also not far behind, their VP wants to project a clean image but they are also harboring ambitions of allying with RJD led by Laloo Prasad (who is just out on bail after being convicted in one of the fodder scam cases).
Cliches when it comes to Coalitions
To justify all these contradictions the politicians have their own set of cliches
1) There are no permanent enemies or friends in politics
2) There are no untouchables in politics
3) This is just an election alliance and not based on ideology
The only thing that we have not seen is the Congress and BJP allying together somewhere or Left allying with BJP. Heard that left is keen on allying with a BJP splinter, so we might actually get to see that also.
As a famous Goundamani dialogue in a tamil movie "arasiyala edhu ellam satharanam appa"(everything goes in politics)..
