Vajpayee's partymen, condemned to a high moral ground, were as critical as anyone else of Chautala's infamous mayhem methods. As everyone knows, Chautala has only postponed his decision.

Two silly factors would have influenced Chautala's postponement decision. One, nothing would happen to anyone, except of course himself, if he decides to withdrawhis support to Vajpayee's outfit. Two, no one else has so far come knocking at his doors asking for support. Chautala is not yet exactly an amiable or useful political entity whom everyone would like to befriend. In such a situation, it may be more foolish on his part to withdraw support than it was to extend it. Until someone emerges who can make use of his minuscule party's strength or weakness, Chautala's decision stands postponed.

Chautala's neighbour, Prakash Singh Badal, has also acted in a similar fashion. Badal and his circumambulating clouds have been rather unfriendly to its ally, the BJP, for a while. When that sudden decision on Udhampura came, reportedly behind Badal's back, there was an inevitable suggestion that Akali Dal declare that it had nothing to do with the saffron government. There was a clamour for pulling out of that alliance. Then followed a spell of restraint. The decision to withdraw support was postponed for one of those mysterious reasons. But there is nothing surprising aboutit. Nothing more surprising than the successful moves to forge an alliance between a party working in pursuit of what it calls for Sikh ideals and another which sees nothing except through Hindutva spectacles.

It could be that Badal and Chautala were persuaded by the same set of factors to postpone their decisions to withdraw support to Vajpayee's government. As for Badal in particular, there was no occasion when he could strike a creatively pro-Congress posture. The question of questions before him was whether his withdrawal would bring the government down, and if it did, whether an alternative one would take shape. The answer to the first question has always been negative.

Vajpayee's government may live or languish even without Badal's help. And Badal never likes to swish his sword when it is sure to hurt no one. In a queer re-enactment of the Biblical scenario, the welder of the sword may himself be wounded.

On the eastern front, Mamata Banerjee has been always fighting a grim battle in the theatreof West Bengal. Mamata cannot but fight. And there has to be someone to act as her target. When she is not fighting Jyoti Basu, she will be fighting a Delhi leader or his/her factotum in Calcutta. In any case, she has to be known as Calcutta's Joan of Arc who never likes to die or depart from the battlefield. When she joined the BJP bandwagon, it appeared she was changing her mien for a while, abandoning politics of defiance and accepting someone's leadership.

It was only an appearance that lasted for a while. As soon as she could, Mamata began making noises about the government which had her support. Mercifully, she has not yet said that she would do everything to pull down Vajpayee's government. In her case, it is postponement of a different kind.

The leader of the southern revolution, Jayaram Jayalalitha, has made postponement a ridiculously repetitive exercise. She not only has been deciding to postpone her decision to withdraw her party's support to Vajpayee's government every other weekend, butpromising to do so in the coming months too. Jayalalitha's signal achievement, apart from amusing M Karunanidhi and annoying Vajpayee, has been to portray herself as a leader with an enormous capacity to avoid taking a decision that she would greatly enjoy. Nothing perhaps in the world has been postponed more times than Jayalalitha's decision on what she should do to Vajpayee's government. She knows that when she withdraws, she may fall down herself, not Vajpayee who has been falling back on her.

Let us be fair to him. Vajpayee has also learnt the art of postponement. And as it always happens, when a darling of mediamen makes a compulsion a virtue, he gets kudos for sagacity and resilience. Vajpayee has won encomiums from his crowd more for not doing things than for doing anything. Consider the great things he has avoided doing.

When he came to power, there was a promise and an expectation that a temple would be built in Ayodhya. There was also an expectation that an outrage would ensue in various partsof India. Vajpayee decided to defer it in the interests of stability. He also postponed action on the gun deal. For somebody whose party had made so much noise, it was not expected to forget it all as soon as he rose to power. But then Vajpayee knew that he could postpone such an action and buy peace from certain useful quarters. Now, he has postponed cabinet expansion. By postponing it, he has escaped the wrath of those who may not be made ministers. Luckily, there is no need for more ministers to do less work.