Coalition-Building Season in India
COIMBATORE, India — As a potential political partner, the chief minister of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu has some drawbacks.
Known by the cozy nickname “Amma,” or “Mother,” Jayalalithaa Jayaram has a reputation as mercurial, ruthless and domineering. During her first years in power, her ministers sometimes prostrated themselves on the floor when they reported to her. A former accountant once accused her of beating him black and blue with a high-heeled shoe, though she denied it, saying she was “too cultured to indulge in such an uncivilized act.”
She can be fickle. Once, feeling neglected in her year-old pact with the ruling party at the time, the Bharatiya Janata Party, she brought the national government crashing down by abruptly withdrawing her support. She signaled this devastating act by inviting Sonia Gandhi, leader of the Indian National Congress Party, for a cup of tea.
Amid India’s national elections, most attention is trained on the front-runner, Narendra Modi of the B.J.P. Mr. Modi — the leader of one of India’s most prosperous states, Gujarat — has cast himself as a technocratic reformer brimming with fresh ideas, headed to New Delhi to shake up the political status quo.
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But his path to the prime minister’s office will depend on a familiar group of secondary politicians: regional satraps whose leverage derives from their ability to form or break a coalition government. Unless the B.J.P. wins the 272 seats necessary to govern alone, Mr. Modi will probably need the support of at least one of the “three ladies,” a formidable group of horse-traders that includes Ms. Jayaram; Mamata Banerjee, the leader of West Bengal; and Mayawati, a former leader of Uttar Pradesh.
Each can offer Mr. Modi something he needs: a mandate strong enough to endorse sweeping change. Each has flirted with the idea of forming a “third front” that excluded the B.J.P. And each, if left unsatisfied, has the ability to extract her pound of flesh.
“In the case of Jayalalithaa, there is a give and take,” said A. S. Panneerselvan, a journalist based in Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu. “That is, she will be very, very clear on what she wants to take.”
During the 10 days after an Indian election, a flurry of secret negotiating takes place as regional heavyweights barter parliamentary seats in exchange for a package of concessions — benefits for their state or themselves, or senior positions for their allies. Under any circumstances, it is a bare-knuckled game replete with double-dealing and deceit.
Mr. Modi’s party has had particular difficulty in building coalitions. Its first taste of national power in 1996 ended after just 13 days when it failed to attract enough allies. Some in the B.J.P. fear a similar fate this time around because major regional players have been hesitant to partner with Mr. Modi. He is loathed by many Muslims, who view him as complicit inbloody religious riots in his state in 2002, though no court has found him responsible. Each of the “three ladies” needs Muslim votes to some extent.
The women will also be cautious about making deals with Mr. Modi because of his reputation as an authoritarian leader, said N. Ram, the publisher of The Hindu, a daily newspaper in Chennai.
“They will be wary; they will try to keep him anxious,” Mr. Ram said. “They don’t want to be taken for granted.”
For now, political prognosticators are left to search for hints that an alliance is in the works.
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