THE REPUBLICseats in northern India whereas the Congress Party remained strong in the
South where it routed regional parties such as Telugu Desam in Andhra.
But this did not help as far as retaining power at the centre was concerned.
The Congress Party won less than 40 per cent of the seats there, Rajiv
Gandhi had to resign and V.P.Singh, whose party had obtained about 20
per cent of the seats, formed a new government. According to the usual
parliamentary conventions, Gandhi as the leader of the largest party
should have been able to form a coalition government, but none of the
other parties was willing to join such a government as their declared aim
had been to oust Gandhi. On the other hand fundamental incompatibilities
prevented the formation of a coalition consisting of all opposition parties.
India had gone back to square one, i.e. the position in 1977 when Indira
Gandhi was ousted by a similar combination of opposition parties. But at
that time these parties had finally agreed to merge so as to support a viable
government. This experiment had not proved to be successful, it was
therefore not repeated. A coalition government would have been a more
reasonable choice, but the time was not yet ripe for this in 1989. Actually
the Congress was still the strongest party and could have easily led a
coalition. But all other parties had wished to oust Rajiv Gandhi and they
could not be expected to enter into a coalition with him nor did the
Congress think of dropping him and presenting another leader instead.
Moreover, the Congress was naturally averse to forming a coalition as it
had always maintained its position at the centre of the political spectrum.
Entering into a coalition would have meant opting for a left or a right
partner and thus compromising its position. Instead V.P.Singh had to form
a minority government tolerated by the Communists on the one hand and
by the BJP on the other. The most important factor in this new political
equation was the BJP, which had increased the number of its parliamentary
seats from 2 to 108. This success was entirely due to the electoral pact with
V.P.Singh which was, however, not an electoral alliance which would have
obliged the BJP to support rather than merely to tolerate V.P.Singh.
Soon after the elections the BJP embarked on a course which was bound
to lead to a collision with V.P.Singh’s government. The BJP opted for the
Ramjanmabhumi campaign which had been going on before 1989 but
which now seemed to provide the victorious party with a popular cause so
as to broaden its social base. Ramjanmabhumi (birthplace of Rama) refers
to a locality in Ayodhya, the ancient capital of the legendary King Rama,
where a temple dedicated to him was replaced with a mosque at the behest
of Baber, the first Great Mughal. The mosque existed but there was no
archaeological evidence as far as the temple is concerned. However, the
firm belief of many Hindus that there had been a temple is stronger than
such evidence. Moreover, the fact that Muslim rulers did replace temples
with mosques has been well documented elsewhere. The Babri Masjid—as
it was called—had not been used by Muslims as a place of worship. It was