During the election campaign, a pesky reporter asked the BJP's prime minister-designate what would happen if his party lost the election. Unfazed, and with a clear twinkle in his eye, Atal Bihari Vajpayee retorted: "Then it will be agli bari, Atal Bihari." It was black humour at its best. Since its formation in 1980, the BJP has persisted with its agli bari refrain for Vajpayee. It clicked -- well almost -- in 1996 when the BJP and its allies pushed the mighty Congress to second place by winning 187 seats. But Vajpayee's glory lasted exactly 13 days and included one of the most memorable performances on television. This time, after cobbling together a series of strategic alliances with regional parties, the BJP-led combine did better. Spectacularly better. As Vajpayee sat at his Safdarjung Road residence watching the results on television and L.K. Advani nursed a sore throat, it was clear that the BJP was only a whisker away from making it -- finally. "The moment of truth. The moment of BJP", as the party advertisement put it.

Tragically for Vajpayee, it has been a pyrrhic victory. Despite reverses in Maharashtra and Rajasthan, the BJP won 178 seats to retain its status as the single largest party in the 12th Lok Sabha. By itself, it has also polled almost as many votes as the Congress. If the votes of its allies are added, 37 per cent of the electorate has reposed its faith in a Vajpayee-led government. That implies a staggering swing of 12 per cent over 1996. That is the good news. The bad news is that if President K.R. Narayanan invites Vajpayee to head the next government, the BJP leader will be a prisoner of his 13 disparate pre-poll allies who hold 73 seats and a score of post-poll friends who will inevitably extract a steep price for their support. There is already an ironic ring to Vajpayee's much used Hindi aphorism for the United Front (UF) during the election campaign: "Kahin ka eent/kahin ka roda/Bhanumati ne kunba joda (a brick from here/a brick from there/that's how Bhanumati got her flock together)".

Vajpayee may find that the last laugh is on him. Trapped between two formidable ladies whose promise of "outside support" sounds ominously like a threat, he may indeed end up as no more than the most agreeable face of a messy coalition. Besides his several allies, Vajpayee will also be coping with the pulls and pressures of leading a BJP government without being in the position to implement the undiluted Hindutva agenda.

The silver lining is that the BJP is reasonably confident of surpassing its earlier record of longevity. The Congress is divided between those who want to rush into another "secular" experiment and those who want to grab the opposition space and wait for the next round. Likewise, the UF is torn between those who want to prevent a BJP-led government at all costs and those who are fearful of losing out to the BJP in the anti-Congress stakes. Given these contradictions, Vajpayee, like P.V. Narasimha Rao in 1991, looks like getting through the vote of confidence by sheer default.

Even if the numbers don't quite add up for the BJP at present, the prospects of forging an anti-BJP combine are even more daunting. No party wants to be seen hijacking the mandate by denying Vajpayee a stint in South Block. "We are not in a hurry" is the present refrain of even those Congress and UF leaders who initially reacted in panic to the news of the BJP's near-victory. Says a BJP leader: "We may not be in the best position but the Congress and the UF are so divided that even if we were to move a no-confidence motion, most of the newly-elected MPs would rather abstain than vote against us." Party General Secretary Pramod Mahajan is more forthright: "It's not as if the President will call anyone who stakes a claim. Then anyone can go to the street corner and stake a claim. Even if the BJP does not get a brute majority or a simple majority, it will manage a working majority." But for how long?

Such pulls and pressures are already in evidence. Jayalalitha, who along with her four allies in Tamil Nadu, commands the loyalty of 27 MPs, is giving the BJP sleepless nights even before Vajpayee has been sworn in. She stunned the BJP by announcing unilaterally that she would extend "outside support" to a Vajpayee government. This, after announcing on television that she would like to play a major role at the Centre. True, she effected a minor retreat by announcing subsequently that "I am very firm in my support to the BJP which alone can give a stable government at the Centre", but her rider that "at different times we have to take different decisions in keeping with the current situation" was ominous. Jayalalitha is certain to keep up her pressure on the BJP to effect "a change of government in Tamil Nadu" even if that entails riding roughshod over constitutional niceties. Keeping Amma in good humour is certain to be one of the major preoccupations of Vajpayee and party President Advani.

Likewise, Haryana Lok Dal-Rashtriya (HLD-R) leader Om Prakash Chautala surprised everyone by announcing his instant "unconditional" support to the BJP despite its alliance with Bansi Lal's Haryana Vikas Party (HVP). It is unlikely that Chautala -- best remembered for his strong-arm tactics during the Meham by-election in 1990 -- did so because he is concerned with stability. He is certain to demand his pound of flesh in good time. In a similar vein, the BJP has to constantly kowtow to Mamata and her Trinamool Congress for two reasons. First, because this was one understanding that was limited to seat sharing -- although it worked like magic on the ground in Calcutta and its adjoining suburbs. Secondly, because Mamata is certain to be the first target of any poaching game by the Congress.

The BJP-led coalition embraces the entire gamut of Indian politics -- from Naveen Patnaik to Chautala, and from Ramakrishna Hegde to MDMK leader V. Gopalasamy. The mere task of forging these divergent strands into a cohesive unit and still maintain a semblance of good governance involves superhuman effort. An easy-going leader, Vajpayee is not known for either cunning or ruthlessness. He is most comfortable in mass politics, but the problems of coalitions are not resolved through thundering speeches. Nor is the party of much help. Most BJP leaders are inward looking and used to RSS-inspired orderliness. They are usually at sea in dealing with people from a different political milieu. For governing with a wafer-thin majority, Vajpayee will need all the wily ingenuity of a Bhairon Singh Shekhawat. The breakthrough could come if Vajpayee succeeds in elevating a political coalition to a cultural coalition.