BJP TODAY

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

Atalji, coalition leader par excellence - L.K. Advani
Six-year long government, yet no anti-incumbency
By our special correspondent

Shri L.K. Advani, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, has described the coalition government run under the leadership of Shri Atal Bihari VAjpayee as an alliance par excellence which was an unique experiment in governance.

Speaking on the occasion of the release of the compendium on Atalji's speeches in Parliament during the coalition years, entitled "Gatbandhan ki Rajneeti" at the Nation Museum, New Delhi on September 2, Shri Advani said : "Aisa Coalition Leader Aur Koi Nahi Hue" (There had been no other coalition leader like him").

Recalling the circumstances that had led to Atalji becoming the Prime Minister for the first time in 1996, Advaniji said that Atalji had been sworn in as the Prime Minister then as he was the leader of the largest single party in Lok Sabha and no other party had staked its claim to form the government.

However, since 1998 (March 19 to be precise), Atalji had been running a government which had always enjoyed a majority in the Lok Sabha. The remarkable fact about this coalition was that it did not gather any anti-incumbency baggage, he said.

The defeat of the Vajpayee government this year was not due to the anti-incumbency factor of his government but was an aggregate of anti-incumbency factors afflicting some State Governments.
Referring to the naming of this coalition as the National Democratic Alliance, Shri Advani said that the parties had recalled that it was Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee, who in 1952 had brought a number of political leaders under the umbrella organisation which he had called the National Democratic Front. Although the Bharatiya Jana Sangh had only three members in the Lok Sabha then the number of members in the Front was a respectable 31. "We had only changed the word Front into Alliance now", he said.

Shri Advani referred to the basic principles of coalition politics which he said was mutual understanding. He recalled in this connection Dendayalji's statement at the 1967 Calicut session of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh in reply to a very strong criticism by a reputed leader of the party for aligning with the Communists in Bihar (in 1967). Deendayalji had stated that political untouchability, like social untouchability, should be abjured.

Shri Advani recalled that even in 1989-90, the BJP and the Left had together supported the V.P. Singh government. Leader of all the parties in that coalition including those supporting it from outside, used to meet every Tuesday and have dinner together.

Referring to the measure of stability the Vajpayee-led coalition had enjoyed, Shri Advani referred to an assessment by the Deutsche Bank of Germany that the present government led by Dr. Manmohan Singh would not last very long and another general election would become due. This was because of the inherent differences in the ideologies among the parties involved in the coalition which would come to the fore during the State Assembly elections in Kerala and West Bengal.
Shri Advani recalled hat the NDA coalition did not suffer from the inherent weakness when two parties represented in the coalition at the centre had an adversarial relationship with the constituents of the coalition at the State level.

The government led by Atalji was a marvellous example of coalition politics and "six years of coalition rule was better than the book released today", he said.

Dr. N.M. Ghatate, former member of the Law Commission, who had compiled the speeches for the volume released on this occasion, said that 109 speeches of Atalji had been included in this compendium.

The book has been published by Prabhat Prakashan.