Nice guys, they say, finish last. But then, lucky guys come first. By all accounts, the end of this week should see Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee proving the truth of the latter maxim. Until late last year, Mr Vajpayee's public ratings were comparable to Sonia Gandhi's; now, they are twice as high. In the weeks ahead, as hard economic decisions have to be taken (on the fiscal deficit, petroleum prices) and the consequences of an indifferent monsoon become manifest (higher primary product prices, for instance), the ratings could drop again.
It has been the devil's own luck that the elections were held in a small time window when Mr Vajpayee's persona has overshadowed everyone else's, and only partly because of the Kargil effect. If, as all the polls predict, Mr Vajpayee is able to form the next government, he should be mindful of the unique opportunity that will have been given to him, of leading a government that delivers. The time to start planning what kind of government, is now, as he waits for the votes to be counted.
Some reflection on the past year-and-a-half would serve him well. Till a few months ago, Mr Vajpayee was considered to be an ineffectual leader who could get little right; his long pauses while speaking caused amusement, his medical condition became a matter of concern after Independence Day last year, and he was incapacitated not just by the extraordinary Ms Jayalalitha Jayaraman, his coalition partner, but also by his own partymen.
More From This Section
He did himself little credit in his response to the attacks on Christians, and the unprecedented sacking of a naval chief raised questions about his government's maturity. His government's first Budget earned low scores, and onions were on the boil. All this found reflection in the electoral defeats of November 1998. There was even talk of how some elements in the Sangh Parivar were conspiring to remove him from office.
Why did the tide began to turn? The Budget at the end of February cheered most observers, partly because it dumped the swadeshi mindset. Fortuitously, there was a feel-good factor in the countryside following a record harvest. Inflation, which had been led mainly by increases in the prices of primary articles, began to decelerate.
It was again fortuitous that Sonia Gandhi chose just that moment to strike and, when the Vajpayee government fell - for want of one dubious vote - the public mood swung decisively in favour of the man who, until three months earlier, had been seen as a bumbler. Still, Mr Vajpayee would have struggled to swing a mandate at the end of May or in early June. Then Kargil happened, followed by the revolt by Sharad