That is not the script I have seen in anybody's hand, including the leaders I met at the Congress session in Bangalore. They do not want another election. But these shifts, which threaten collapse, are running straight into a rather sobering logic of arithmetic. To coax an alternative coalition from this Lok Sabha is like looking for water in dry stone. Yet, one cannot be all sanguine either.
Nations go to war because statesmen lose control at the brink.
Coalitions collapse by accident when, in a moment of crisis, the coalition partners begin to pursue their own agenda. Also, when factions within the major ruling party, sensing blood, accelerate the infighting, the government must be seen to be living dangerously. So, the government will continue to live dangerously, its health will deteriorate further but it will not collapse because there is no arithmetical logic that can throw up an alternative coalition in this Lok Sabha. In other words, the next major hurdle to be crossed is the round of assembly elections due in a little over a month in Kerala, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry and Assam. One can split hairs at this point and argue that the BJP inclined 10 per cent of the vote in Kerala, which generally enables the UDF to come to power, may not be available after Sonia Gandhi's shrill speech in Bangalore.