BJP TODAY

September 16--30, 2004 - Vol. 13, No. 18

Not going to sign off with “Pushkar Jhale” - Atalji
Coalition politics unavoidable in India
By our special correspondent

Mumbai and the rest of India were stunned in disbelief on June 23/24 when reports of Atal Bihari Vajpayee declaring that "Ata Bari Nako, Pushkar Jhale" became known and its implication appeared to sink in. Did Atalji make known his views to quit active politics in the wake of the electoral defeat suffered by the National Democratic Alliance a month earlier?
The occasion at which Atalji spoke those five words in Marathi, the language he loves, was a workers' meeting in a Mumbai suburb orgainsed on the occasion of the death anniversary of Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee at which Atalji and Advaniji and other BJP leaders were present. The BJP was holding its national executive meeting in Mumbai on June 22 to 24 and the workers' meeting was held to coincide with this meeting.

Atalji had uttered those words in response to repeated slogan shouting by party men and women when he rose to speak, with the familiar refrain : "Agli Bari, Atal Bihari". Since this slogan was being raised barely a month after he ceased to be the Prime Minister, it did appear to be somewhat inappropriate to chant it that time. Hence Atalji's mild rebuke to his supporters saying in Marathi "Ata Bari Nako, Pushkar Jhale" ("Enough is enough, No more now".

The next day, at the national executive meeting, Atalji had clarified that he had asked in Marathi the workers to stop chanting this slogan for his love for the language and because the audience was overwhelmingly Marathi-speaking. Nothing more need be read in those words, he had added.

Fifteen months later in New Delhi, speaking on the occasion of the dedication of a compendium of his speeches in Parliament in recent days, at the National Museum auditorium, Atalji re-iterated that he had no intenstion to hang up his boots. He would continue to be in active in politics and not say "Pushkar Jhale" again.

The main theme of Atalji's speech, however, was on the merits and demerits of coalition politics in the country and his unhesitating vote for accepting the fact that a one-party government emerging in the near future being unlikely, coalition governments were unavoidable.

He admitted that the country had not yet been reconciled to the inevitablity of coalition governments (at the Centre), accepting it in the sole event of lack of a majority support in the Lok Sabha by one single party. Many considered it as a compulsion (majbooti) rather than a recipe for strong government ("majboori"). The Congress Party, he recalled, had not accepted the concept of a coalition government earlier but had now been compelled to go for one.

Atalji said that the acid test for working a coalition was whether the parties involved were willing to work together despite subscribing to different ideologies and principles. However, if such parties worked together inspite of the differences, it would strengthen democracy-whether of the Presidential or of the Parliamentary system.

He conceded that even though India was a large country with a population exceeding one billion some people might have reservation about a coalition government at the centre. However, he said, there were a number of countries were coalition governments were in office. He re-iterated that a one-party government did not appear to be a feasible proposition now and hence a mindset for accepting the concept of coalition governments had to be developed.

Atalji said that the concept that a coalition government was an inferior form of governance should be abjured. There should be no political untouchability in the country's polity, he stressed. The crux was ability to work together. This was necessary, he stressed, even in one-party governments.