The party that sought the people's mandate on the promise of getting rid of bhaya, bhookh and bhrashtachar (fear, hunger and corruption) is today a haven for all manner of people who have an extremely cavalier attitude towards probity in public life. Much has already been written about how the BJP has clasped to its bosom the irrepressible Sukh Ram, who had earlierleft Rs 3 crore or thereabouts lying around in his bathroom like loose change. So much so that the BJP's change of orientation from `Jai Sri Ram' to `Jai Sukh Ram' has become a pathetic cliche which bothers only the idealistic and the naive. The party's change of perspective regarding Jayalalitha, who it had not so long ago described with epithets like ``the mother of all scams'' and ``the fountainhead of corruption'', has also been noted. One by one Yashwant Sinha and Buta Singh, Ramakrishna Hegde and Om Prakash Chautala, all honourable men no doubt despite allegations against them, have found sanctuary within the self-righteous Sangh Parivar. All these are now old hat in a situation when the party appears to have taken to heart the saying, ``A new day, a new friend''.

What is intriguing is why the BJP has still not been able to get into its ample fold some other distinguished public men and women who too are similarly charged. Given the plethora of persons charged with corruption in India, it is difficultto understand why the Bharatiya Janata Party should have had so much difficulty in building up an alliance system and cobbling together a majority. For instance, why is Laloo Prasad Yadav still a secularist ``outsider'' and why has Sonia Gandhi merely offered ``constructive cooperation''? In this age of realpolitik, when ``compromising'' is no longer a pejorative, it should be unnecessary for the Bharatiya Janata Party to have to take recourse to the mathematical genius of speakers like Kesri Nath Tripathi who has proved that 13 is more than one-third of 69 when it comes to the counting of defectors from Opposition parties. Surely, more subtle methods can be found to give the nation a dose of the BJP's version of stability.

P.V. Narasimha Rao too had sought to give the nation stability under himself and indeed he had succeeded to the extent of governing for five uninterrupted years. He started with numbers short of the magical majority figure in the Lok Sabha but, by and by, he too is said to have exercisedthe effect that catnip has on cats on parliamentarians. It is another matter that years after he left office, he is still having to do the rounds of courts, charged with the offense of purchasing prohibited merchandise. Atal Behari Vajpayee is a scholar and a statesman, much like Narasimha Rao, and he too has long experience of parliamentary practice and the rule of law. For a man who has announced that he is not interested in seeking another term in Parliament, Vajpayee must surely be uninterested in making an acquaintanceship with the courts.

Nevertheless, there is a delicate irony about the fact that what used to be the distribution of mere portfolios has been caricatured as the distribution of suitcases. While the cartoonist's art is necessarily hyperbolic, the reality is that Jayalalitha has been able to secure for one of her followers the vital law and justice departments. Also, the ``substitute finance minister'' Yashwant Sinha has been compelled to clip his own wings by giving virtually independentcharge of the departments of revenue, banking and insurance to the Revolutionary Leader's nominee in North Block. The most blatant example of the compromises made by Atal Behari Vajpayee to cling limpet-like to power was articulated by an unnamed BJP leader who said that although the Prime Minister is reluctant to use Article 356 to dismiss the DMK government in Tamil Nadu, ``we will have to do so if that is the only way of remaining in office''.

In such a situation, it is futile to look at this or that policy or programme as the basis of the present government's term in office. The joke is already current about the irrelevance of (Article) 370 when the important number for the BJP is 270. That other exclusive concerns of the Sangh Parivar have been similarly jettisoned is a relief, even though it was inevitable in the obtaining political circumstances. There is no need, therefore, to hold the BJP to its promises regarding the uniform civil code and other such matters. However, when it comes to the issue ofthe BJP's claim of setting up a ``government with a difference one based on su-raj and, hence, wedded to the eradication of corruption'', there is not only ample scope but also a crying need to turn the light on the BJP's pretensions.

While both Machiavelli and Kautilya held hypocrisy to be an inevitable attribute of the Prince, they were not talking of rulers who need their mandate from the people. The leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party may yet be made to realise that democracy is a different political arrangement altogether. They have been so used to functioning within the authoritarian setting of the Sangh Parivar where legitimacy resides only in the will of the supremo that they have little understanding of the republican spirit. For instance, they do not seem to realise that in a democracy while you can fool some of the people all the time and all the people for some time, it is impossible to fool all the people all the time. This is a truth that has been demonstrated to the Congress leaders. Nowthe BJP leaders are in line to learn their lesson.