Periodic monitoring of ministerial functioning would stand the Prime Minister in good stead, indeed. He must not hesitate to pull up an errant colleague, and to pat the other giving a good account of himself in his ministry. The Prime Minister's another theme at the BJP's national executive too was unexceptionable. The Indian polity, as he noted, had now entered an era of coalitions. Notwithstanding the day-dreams of the Congress Party, there is little prospect of any single party ruling India on its own in the foreseeable future.
Coalitions are here to stay.
Therefore, as Vajpayee said, politicians and political parties alike must learn to practice the 'dharma' of coalitions. That the BJP was keen to do so was clear from the meticulous manner in which it had gone about fashioning an all-embracive alliance with small and regional groups before the parliamentary polls. It was this clever move on its part which ensured its return to power. And the import of Vajpayee's remarks on the dharma of coalitions lay in the fact that he was keen to press ahead with the NDA coalition in a spirit of give and take. Of course, certain strident voices from BJP's allies in the Sangh Parivar often queered the party's pitch but thanks to Vajpayee's towering personality the hot heads and other extremists are held in check before they went out of hand.