Coalition dharma or one-party dogma?

Today, the coalition is under stress. CPI general secretary A.B. Bardhan has warned of "bad days ahead" for it. And CPI(M) Politburo member (and likely future general secretary) Prakash Karat likens the Congress to "the leopard that won't change its spots."

In election-bound Bihar and Jharkhand, Mr Laloo Prasad's Rashtriya Janata Dal, has drifted away and accuses the Congress of splitting the secular vote. The RJD is under attack from another UPA member, Mr Ram Bilas Paswan's Lok Janashakti Party. The Samajwadi Party and Congress are at loggerheads in Uttar Pradesh.

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What has gone wrong? Is the Congress to blame for the present mess? To what extent can the NDA gain from it? Can anything be done to clear the mess?

The Congress seems to be unlearning the rationale of the transition it made from Pachmarhi (1998, when it declared that the people want a single-party alternative to messy coalition politics), to Shimla (2003, when it accepted that coalitions are necessary; it must become part of one).

The Congress has developed delusions of grandeur and is turning conservative. It's more concerned to assert its supremacy than follow the logic of coalition politics.

Bihar and Jharkhand provide the starkest instance of the Congress's new-found arrogance. In Bihar, the UPA faced its first major test of unity. It failed it -- not just because Mr Paswan and Mr Prasad fell out, but also because state Congress leaders convinced themselves that their party would exceed its present tally of 12 seats manifold in the coming elections.

So they demanded 115 seats from the RJD-Left (of a total of 243). Their cynical calculation? By denying the RJD an outright majority, they would become "kingmakers."

The Congress then joined hands with Mr Paswan's LJP despite the latter's opposition to the RJD. This confused the secular-minded voter.

Unlike in 2004, when secular parties fought together and won almost three-fourths of Bihar's seats, they are competing and raiding one another's bases. Mr Prasad has formed a bloc with the Left. The LJP has taken him on in all 243 seats. And Mr Prasad has "friendly fights" with the Congress in 83 seats.

Mr Prasad has used relatively restrained language against the Congress, and not once criticised Ms Sonia Gandhi. But the voter cannot get a clear answer: is the Congress the RJD's friend or foe?

The Congress was to peeved with Mr Prasad that it unilaterally allied itself with the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha to corner together 68 of the state's 87 seats. This is likely to cause the secular alliance some setbacks. As a result, the Congress will suffer too.

The Congress is acting myopically elsewhere also. In Maharashtra, it insisted on having its Chief Minister although the post should have gone to the Nationalist Congress. In Andhra, it has ignored promises made to the Telengana Rashtra Samiti.

In Goa, the UPA-appointed Governor overturned the patently fraudulent vote organised by the Speaker after wrongly disqualifying one MLA. There were other ways of annulling the fraud. But the Governor chose the easy option.

In UP too, the Congress is trying to topple the Mulayam Singh government -- although it's too weak to furnish a secular alternative.

The Congress forgets that the key to the UPA's Lok Sabha victory lay in alliances. Good election analyses show that "Coalitions were vital … in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand. These contributed more than half of the seats" to the UPA's final kitty.

The UPA would be downright foolish to pursue policies that run counter to the Common Minimum Programme. Its Lok Sabha success was attributable to its projection of social healing: reaffirming secularism, redressing agrarian distress and unemployment, and correcting terrible recent inequities.

These included falling social indicators, growing disparities, and anti-minority discrimination. The UPA promised to drop neoliberal "free-market" agendas for a Left-of-Centre emphasis on improving the lot of the common people (the aam aadmi, who subtly displaced the gharib, the poor, in party slogans).

Yet, some worthy programmes were abandoned -- including rural debt relief and credit provision, doubling the health budget, reducing regional disparities, empowering minorities, and guaranteeing freedom of information. The UPA also diluted compulsory education for all children under 14, and employment guarantee with universal access.

Today, the UPA's emphasis is on tax breaks for corporations and rich people, schemes to attract foreign investment into telecom and banking, creating monopolies through tight patent laws, and following a WTO-dictated skewed trade regime.

This has alienated the Left from the UPA -- despite its flexibility, for instance, in not opposing FDI in aviation.

The government's strategy is not so much to negotiate with the Left parties as to get the corporate media to malign them as medieval dinosaurs identical to the xenophobic, chauvinist and anti-modern sangh parivar, which blindly defends domestic monopolies against competition.

The Left sometimes uses conservative-sounding or outmoded language. But it represents modernist and egalitarian politics based on justice. These values are firmly rooted in the Enlightenment tradition. The Hindutva Right loathes the Enlightenment and is deeply uncomfortable with Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.

Ordinary people will judge the UPA not by what it does for boosting FDI and lowering taxes on cars, but whether it reduces joblessness, and provides healthcare, education, and drinking water. If the UPA drifts Rightwards, it's liable to be punished as severely by the people as was the NDA.

To avert this, Ms Sonia Gandhi must urgently begin course correction inside both the Congress and the UPA.

Praful Bidwai is an eminent Indian columnist.