The argument that so many million Indians voted in the way they did last week just because of the rise in onion price is as breathtakingly arrogant, as cynically insensitive as Mrs Gandhi (the original) and her apologists blaming her post-emergency defeat on disinformation over sterilisations. It is also just as insulting to the poor voter though it may ironically pave the way for the new Mrs Gandhi into 7, Race Course Road.

The BJP and its allies can do better than jump to such self-serving conclusions. But there isn't any evidence as yet of any such soul-searching. For some inthe BJP, it is just as well that Vajpayee had his nose rubbed into the ground -- what else does he expect for trying to defy the Sangh Parivar and concentrating all powers in the PMO? So go for his jugular now. For the others, it is one final warning to the Sangh Parivar and the allies that they better stay out of Vajpayee's way and let him govern, for a change. Every faction leader seems to find some cause for satisfaction in this historic humiliation. Don't overlook the fact that the only smiling faces in the BJP -- in fact tell me if you've ever seen them grim or unhappy in their numerous TV appearances this week are Sahib Singh Verma and Madan Lal Khurana. Here are two men most directly responsible for their party's electoral destruction. They are also the smuggest I-told-you-sos you've seen in a long time. So do you expect some introspection from them?

It might be interesting to speculate on what kind of report card the BJP could have gone to the polls with even if the onion prices had remainedreasonable. In the initial excitement of power, the party rushed into Pokharan and hoped that it would generate a mega-euphoria sustainable till these state elections. But so poor was its leadership's preparation both for exploiting this "achievement" at home as well as for containing the damaging fallout ab-road that within weeks of the tests it was going around the world apologising. At home, mum's been the word since then. A little bit like the urchin who punctures somebody's car and then goes around pleading with all the neighbours he didn't do it.

If the way the coalition handled the post-test situation internationally was a stunning self-goal (particularly the initial muscle-flexing at China), its miscalculation as to the domestic, political gains from this was so disastrously puerile. But what do you expect from people whose minds are frozen in the insecure Sixties? How can they understand why we Indians do not feel as insecure as we did three decades ago? We are unlikely to vote against Pakistan, orthe Islamic fundamentalist threat or some oddball like Mast Gul or Osama bin Laden in 1998 when, viewed purely in terms of security, India is in a better state than ever before. But that is another question that might justify an entire National Interest by itself in weeks to come. So what did the BJP want us to vote for or against now?

Rather than blame the humble onion, the BJP would do better just looking at what it promised earlier this year and failed to deliver. It talked of a clean government, and then signed up Sukh Ram, Jayalalitha and Buta Singh. It promised us good governance -- su-raj. Hold an opinion poll today. The people of Delhi and businessmen of Mumbai would come across as more insecure about their lives and properties than those in Srinagar. It promised discipline, fiscal and political. But its partner Akali Dal now gives free power to the farmers. Thackeray is making the same offer to his farmers while thumbing his nose at none else than the Prime Minister on the question ofletting the Pakistanis play cricket in Mumbai, now India's foremost mafia city. The "roll-back" budget certainly didn't make it look like a government that knew even the basics of its business. It promised us genuine economic reform, with a level-playing field for swadeshi businessmen. Ask the Tatas what they think of the Ministry of Uncivil Aviation. Here is a government that swore by deregulation but brought back the legitimacy of the ration card now you need it to buy onions, fertiliser and to even apply for selection in the Delhi under-16 cricket team. It also promised us openness, transparency, a constitutional right to information and yet used the antiquated Official Secrets Act to raid one of India's largest corporates only to find thin air. That within a couple of days the Prime Minister and home minister both seemed to be apologetic yet again was entirely predictable and of a piece with the way this government has conducted itself. The urchin who punctured somebody's car...

Even specific promisesin the national agenda for governance, such as the formation of smaller states have not been kept. BJP's own ally, the Akalis have blocked Uttarakhand. Jayalalitha has delayed the power sector reform. Mamata Banerjee has apparently stalled the winding up of the eight sickest PSUs. The Prasar Bharati misadventure also tells the same story of juvenile bumbling. Ever since the formation of this coalition, the BJP leaders and their apologists have argued that this is a coalition government so they cannot be blamed for not fulfilling all of their own party's original agenda. Fair enough, but what about this allegedly common agenda? The argument would now be that the allies are proving to be difficult. Then what is political management all about? So amateurish has the coalition's handling of all this been that it has made Deve Gowda and I.K. Gujral look better in comparison.

This week the captains of Indian industry have been in the capital, rubbing shoulders with the hot-shots from scores of MNCs and thegovernment big-wigs at the India Economic Summit organised by World Economic Forum of the Davos fame. What have they been talking about? Crime and extortion in Mumbai, bureaucratic bottlenecks in Delhi, political pussyfooting on issues such as insurance reform, crumbling infrastructure and so on. These are not the kind of gents who would worry about the price of onions even if it touched three figures. These are the very same people who rooted for the BJP so vehemently just a few months ago. Ask them now who they will vote for. And you think the rest of us are only complaining about onions?