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India starts coalition gov't guessing game

NEW DELHI: Hundreds of millions of Indians have yet to cast ballots in general elections, but speculation was already rife on Sunday over which parties will team up to form a coalition government.

Every opinion survey has forecast a hung parliament emerging from the elections which began on Saturday and end on May 30.

"A coalition is all but inevitable," said Pran Chopra of the Centre for Policy Research. "But a coalition formed and led by whom?"

Voters in 150 of 543 parliamentary constituencies being contested went to the polls on Saturday. Balloting in all but six constituences will be completed by May 7, and the contours of the final outcome are expected by May 11.

Horsetrading will follow, with the choice of prime minister falling to President Shankar Dayal Sharma, a 77-year-old Cambridge-educated legal expert.

The constitution gives little guidance to Sharma, whose powers are mostly ceremonial, except in crises. It says only that the prime minister shall be appointed by the president.

By custom he invites the leader of the party with the largest bloc in parliament to form a government. If the polls are right, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would have its first chance at national power.

The two latest opinion surveys have shown the BJP, which won 120 seats in 1991, taking between 178 and 197 seats, outdistancing Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao's ruling Congress party by some 25 to 30 seats.

But the rightwing BJP is split over whether to try to form a coalition or wait for fresh elections which many expect before the five-year term of the next legislature expires.

If the BJP failed to keep a coalition together it could be used against them in the next polls, some party members fear.

"It will be in the BJP's interest if we don't stake a claim," Arun Jetley, a member of the BJP's think tank, told India Today magazine. "Then the next poll will not be too far away, and we only stand to gain from this situation."

Other major groups are reluctant to tie up with the BJP, although the Hindu nationalists have linked arms with some regional parties this year.

"Parties and groups which might be drawn to the BJP because of its elan and organisational strength are repelled by its ideological smell," Chopra said.

The BJP's promotion of Hindu culture appeals to many in India's overwhelmingly dominant religion but is anathema to most Moslems, some 12 percent of the country's 930 million people.

Congress, which has ruled India for all but four years since independence from Britain in 1947, normally has an advantage because it has the widest geographical and ideological range.

But the party enters the polls hobbled by splits which have allowed Rao to tighten his grip on the party's apparatus but driven some powerful politicians into opposition.

The Asian Age newspaper said a group of Congress dissidents was plotting to oust Rao if the party won fewer than 150 seats.

But Rao, who has earned a reputation for Machiavellian prowess after being thrust into power in 1991 following the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, could be in a strong position if Congress ended with some 170 seats.

Ironically, while polls show most people want change, they also underscore Rao's relatively high popularity. Many leftwing voters prefer Congress led by Rao to the BJP, they indicate.

The name of Rajiv Gandhi's Italian-born widow, Sonia Gandhi has resurfaced in newspapers as a potential challenger to Rao. But so far she has shown no willingness to join the fray.

Chopra thinks the leftwing National Front-Left Front (NF-LF), including the socialist Janata Dal and the communists, could woo Congress dissidents and emerge as the third option.

There is no shortage of aspirants in the NF-LF, including the Janata Dal's charismatic leader, Laloo Prasad Yadav.

Chopra said the 81-year-old leader of the Communist Party of India-Marxist, Jyoti Basu, could come forward. He is regarded as "Mr Clean" of politics in West Bengal, the state he has ruled for 19 years with a heavy dose of pragmatism.-Reuter