How excited are you by the thought of Mamata Bannerjee calling the shots at the Centre? By the prospect of Jayalalithaa holding the government to ransom? By the image of Amar Singh deciding what India’s economic policy should be? By Mayawati ordering the Prime Minister around?
Don’t bother answering. These were rhetorical questions, anyway. But judging by the looks of horror that have spread across your faces this Sunday morning, you are finally beginning to come to terms with what things might be like once the results are declared.
My intention was not to wreck your Sunday. Rather, I wanted to point out how reality has destroyed one of the great clichés of 1990s political discourse. Since 1989, when it became clear that we were entering an era of hung Parliaments, political scientists, commentators, journos, edit writers and all-purpose intellectuals, began arguing that coalitions were A Very Good Thing.
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