It was exactly 18 years ago, virtually to the date, that the Congress party made its great comeback after the resounding defeat in the 1977 general election. In between, Indira Gandhi had split the party, anointed her younger son Sanjay as her successor and engineered such chaos in the Janata Party that the unthinkable had happened: the family which for purely personal reasons had imposed the Emergency had been swept back to power.
More than anything else, it was that election which firmly planted the idea in Congressmens minds that without the Gandhi family the party is a cipher. True, that in 1971 too Indira Gandhi had led it to victory. But this time there was a difference: she had brought it back from the graveyard. It was a miracle, and like all miracles, it cast such a powerful spell that its legacy still lives on.
Sonia Gandhi appears to be of the view that the spell is stronger in the South than in the North. That, apparently, is why she has decided to begin her election campaign for the Congress from Tamil Nadu. (One must wonder, though, whether it sensible to spend limited time on areas where the marginal benefit will be less than on areas where it could be more, i.e the North, especially Uttar Pradesh).
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As this column pointed out last week, her intervention can become decisive only if and only if she manages to bring about a swing of around 3 to 4 per cent in favour of the Congress. That alone can enable it to be invited ahead of the BJP to form the government. On the other hand, if the Congress is not invited before the BJP, her campaigning would have been in vain.
This is exactly the objective which the BJP is also following. It knows that it cant get a simple majority 272 seats either on its own or with its allies. All it wants, like the Congress, is to be invited first, so that it can put together a majority via the magnet of power. The smaller the gap, the easier it will be to do so.
The gap can be made up in one of two ways by inducing defections which can be dicey because of the anti-defection law or by getting support in return for ministerial posts. Chances are that whether it is the BJP or the Congress, they will first exercise the second option.
The last experiment with a coalition which was formed after the election has shown that it ties the hands of the leading partner almost completely. If this lesson has sunk in, then the BJP at least will have to keep the gap at a minimum, perhaps no more than 25 seats.
Otherwise, it will become a prisoner in the hands of smaller parties who will demand proportionately more ministerial posts than their numbers in the Lok Sabha warrant. Since the party is already facing this problem in the context of tickets for newcomers, it is reasonable to expect it not to get into a coalition that is too messy. If it does, it could well face a Gujarat-type situation.
The Congress is better placed in this sense at least. Unlike the BJP it has nothing to lose and everything to gain by leading a UF-type wide-bodied coalition. This wont help governance, but who cares?