UPPER HAND: Mayawati's party has conceded little to its coalition partners

Years ago, when Mayawati was just one of the many upcoming leaders in the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Kanshi Ram was asked why he was promoting her at the expense of the many other senior party workers. The party supremo's terse reply was: "She is a fighter and the BSP needs someone like her at the helm."

The real reason may lie elsewhere but nobody who has ever encountered Mayawati, be it in the Lok Sabha, the Uttar Pradesh legislature or even in the Lucknow Circuit House, could have come away without sensing her fighting qualities. For much of the last fortnight, she displayed these very characteristics at the negotiation table where her party was attempting to form a government in Uttar Pradesh for the third time in seven years in partnership with the BJP.

The final round of negotiations lasted into the late hours of April 25, but at the end it was clear that the following week a new Mayawati-led government would be in place in Lucknow. That both sides were earnest about forming a coalition government in Lucknow was apparent the day Union Home Minister L.K. Advani, for long a bitter opponent of a renewed tie-up with the BSP, met Kanshi Ram and Mayawati on April 16. A subsequent meeting between Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee and senior state BJP leaders like Rajnath Singh, Kalraj Mishra and Lalji Tandon, all of whom were initially opposed to an alliance with the BSP, generated hopes of a government being sworn in Uttar Pradesh. If there was still a delay in formalising the deal it was because unlike on the previous two occasions, the BJP did not want to leave anything to chance. The apprehension persists among the party cadres that they are supping with a casteist party. To add to it was the fact that the party was tying up with an unpredictable ally who had twice in the past ditched them, was both abrasive and dictatorial and whose every earlier administrative decision had been dictated by caste considerations. To cap it all, the upper caste-dominated state bureaucracy, over which Mayawati ran roughshod during her two previous terms, was loathe to work with her.

FALLING IN LINE: (From left) Rajnath, Mishra and Tandon bowed to the BJP brass

There were other contentious issues to be resolved: the constitution of a coordination committee, the formation of a common minimum programme, not to speak of the distribution of portfolios. But with the Opposition-sponsored censure motion coming up before the Lok Sabha on April 30, it was imperative that the issue be resolved before then. The April 25 meeting did not go without its share of hitches, but at the end of it, considerable headway was made. Contrary to earlier reports, there would be no deputy chief minister in the new administration. The two parties have agreed to evolve a mechanism to ensure that caste is not the main criteria while taking policy decisions or in the matter of allocation of funds. The new chief minister, who unilaterally announced 13 new districts during her previous tenures, has also agreed that she would not undertake any such exercise without consulting her coalition partners.

According to sources, as the two sides discussed the composition of the coalition, Mayawati demanded that the ministries be divided among the two parties as per the formula worked out for the ill-fated 1997 coalition. But the BJP was determined to keep some key portfolios like home, finance and the public works department. Mayawati wanted complete control of administration but the BJP, wary of her "transfer-posting raj", insisted that all such matters be settled through consultations between alliance partners. "We don't want such small things to tar the image of a government in which our party is a partner," said a state BJP leader.

There was more trouble in store for the yet-to-be-firmed-up alliance, this time in the form of Union Agriculture Minister Ajit Singh and his Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD). Realising that a BSP-BJP government was not possible without the support of his 14 MLAs, Singh demanded a seat in the coordination committee besides half a dozen berths in the state Cabinet. The BJP has 88 MLAs in the 403-member Assembly, the BSP 98. Together they total 186 seats, still 15 short of a majority.

The new formation depends not only on the RLD but also on the Loktantrik Congress and Janata Dal (U), both of which have two MLAs, to reach the required mark of 201. Even if half of the 15 independents support the new alliance-and that may be a big if, unless they are all given cabinet berths-a stable government will be at the mercy of the mercurial Singh, who has floated more new parties and joined more alliances than he would care to remember.

But while Singh's demand for his party's representation in the coordination committee has been conceded, the chief minister-to-be has ensured that he does not interfere in Uttar Pradesh affairs. She wants the committee to comprise state-level leaders with no MPs or central leader. She wants it to function like a cabinet committee on political affairs. The committee-which will look into matters like legislative business and administration-is likely to have seven members.

If the doughty Mayawati did concede anything, it was her insistence that Kesari Nath Tripathi not be renominated again. She holds a grouse against the Speaker of the previous Assembly for legalising a split in her party in 1998. But the BJP leadership seems to have convinced the BSP leader to change her stance.

The BJP is also said to have insisted on a common minimum programme similar to the NDA's National Agenda for Governance to run the coalition government. "Matters will be resolved by Sunday and we hope to have the government installed in Lucknow by Monday, April 29," said former BJP president Kushabhau Thakre, now in charge of party affairs in Uttar Pradesh.

The sudden turn of events in the past two days shows this is not too optimistic a statement. Leaders of both parties vouch that the latest coalition experiment will be unlike the two previous ones and will endure. If indeed that happens, there's much to gain for all the parties involved, particularly for the beleaguered BJP. The ruling party's biggest gain is the accretion of the 14 BSP MPs to the NDA fold in the Lok Sabha, making it a lot less shaky in the event of partners like the Telugu Desam Party walking out over the issue of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi's dismissal.

Besides, a string of defeats in several states in the recent past has left BJP cadres demoralised and its leaders panicky. The success of the experiment in Lucknow may pave the way for a pre-poll alliance between the BJP and the BSP in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Delhi and Himachal Pradesh where elections are due next year and where there is a substantial Dalit and Muslim population. If the BJP can avert disasters in these states, it may be able to secure the stability of the NDA Government till the end of its term.

-with Subhash Mishra in Lucknow