With the Congress performance in Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan establishing her vote-getting potential, Congress president Sonia Gandhi has wrested the initiative from BJP Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee. The only doubt about Ms. Gandhi was whether the Indian voters would accept a foreign-born individual to lead them ... Today ... is it clear that the moderate mindset of the Indian voter has refused to get put off by her foreign origin ...
The Congress ... has three options before it: a) Seeing the negative impact of the performance of the BJP-led government on voters, the Congress can allow the Vajpayee Government to stagger on for a year more, till the elections to nine state assemblies get completed. A collapse in those polls can be expected to lead to a mid-term poll, in which the AICC can exploit the anti- incumbency factor to attempt to get a majority on its own ...
b) In view of its being by far the single largest party in a non-BJP coalition, the Congress can demand that a new government be headed by Ms. Sonia Gandhi. Congress culture makes it extremely unlikely that a Congress-led government will be led by anyone other than the party supremo ... While the Left parties are unlikely to participate in such a government, they will have to support it from outside to keep a wounded BJP out. Such a government is likely to have a "shelf life" of around two years before its viability expires ... The government may be able to face the polls as a united entity and return to office with a larger poll of MPs.
c) To exploits the advantages of non-incumbency while simultaneously keeping out the BJP, the Congress may agree to the formation of a government supported by it. Such a regime could be headed by a dark horse ... and would include breakaway groups of the Samata Party, the Biju Janata Dal, the Akali Dal and the Telugu Desam ... In case the AIADMK also agrees to participate in the new government, it would - together with Left and Congress support - have a healthy majority in both Houses of Parliament. In a year's time, the AICC can either decide to jettison support and go in for a mind-poll ... or permit Congress MPs to join the government, and thus extend its life ...
Clearly, the Hindutva agenda propagated by the BJP's front organisation has sacred the minorities into voting en masse to defeat it.
Such a negative factor will make the BJP an undesirable partner, especially in the South, where the AIADMK may have swept the polls had it avoided a pre-poll alliance with the BJP and forfeited the 12 per cent minority vote to the DMK ... (Source: The Times of India)