The recent political, developments in Bihar and Pondicherry suggest that a sense of hard-headed realism has finally prevailed over the Congress. It was less than two years ago, during the three-day conclave at Pachmarhi, that the party rejected coalition politics – at least to the extent of resolving it would enter into coalitions as a last resort and that too only on the basis of programmes that do not compromise its basic ideology. Issued at a time when the BJP-led coalition Government seemed in danger of being undone by its fractious Allies the Pachmarhi declaration reflected the prevailing confidence that the Vajpayee regime would crumble under its own contradictions and that, in a matter of time, the Congress would be able to reestablish its political primacy. A fair amount has happened since then to suggest that the Congress is prepared to abandon its self-imposed isolationism and willing to embark on pragmatic political partnerships ...

... The debate on whether Congress has killed the spirit of Pachmarhi should not cloud the fact that, in the long term, the real answers about reviving the party's fortunes neither lie in eschewing coalition arrangements nor entering into them willy-nilly. Rather they depend on the adoption of measures which convince people that the party is firmly committed to providing a clean, secular, and democratic governance.