Indeed, Vajpayee supporters at senior levels in the BJP-RSS are apt to describe RSS departments such as the Swadeshi Jagran Manch and the Bajrang Dal as "extra-constitutional centres of authority" in the same manner as the Sanjay Gandhi cohorts used to be considered in the context of the Congress 25 years ago.

It is also noteworthy that while discernible mistrust between Nagpur and Vajpayee is something like 10 years old, he has succeeded in overcoming the challenge from within the parivar only on becoming prime minister. This suggests he has had to deploy cold steel against his saffron tormentors. The threat of use of the awesome forcethat resides in the prime minister's office is not something most status quoist individuals or institutions are designed to withstand for long. The RSS is no exception. It may also have been unnerved by an implied threat by Vajpayee to split the party.

Even if the RSS retreat is tactical, it allows Vajpayee to enter his second year in office in confident stride, for the challenge from the Hindutva hardliners, rather than Jayalalitha or Mamata Banerjee, was the main factor that had kept his government off balance. But the taming of the hardened Nagpur supervisors is no guarantee that the governance under his stewardship would suddenly discover an elusive elan.

Here lies the paradox. Vajpayee, the individual, may have won palace battles and reached dry ground. But his government continues to be inundated with uncertainties. In the end, of course, the two cannot be separated, but the Prime Minister does get a breathing space at last.

However, a comforting prospect is not offered by many factors -- likeserious charges of corruption against the government, abiding inner fractures within the party apparatus which impact on government at the centre and in BJP-run states, competing pressures from regional allies as well as the political health of such allies which has lately begun to deteriorate -- witness the goings-on inside Akali Dal, Shiv Sena, Samta Party, the TDP and even the AIADMK and the Trinamul Congress -- and the concussions caused to the system by shrill communal propaganda and unhappy economic management.

Governance is a complex matter, not merely dependent on the political survival of the leader in office. But Vajpayee's new-found confidence does ensure that his putative rivals within BJP-RSS lie low for now. Of course, the converse of this is that the longer they are obliged to bide their time, the more bitter they might get with him. This has wide implications. For one, it could lead to a sudden opening up of two-way traffic between the BJP organisation and the government, impartinginstability to the system. For now, however, he looks safer than ever before.

Vajpayee had the shrewdness to execute his moves to bring the RSS top brass in line on the eve of the Budget session of Parliament, thus insulating his government against possible accidents during this crucial session. The result is visible. For instance, Gurumurthy of the Swadeshi Jagran Manch discovers swadeshi merit in a Budget which foreign institutional investors are apt to applaud! And Dattopant Thengadi, still holding a place of eminence in the RSS family, finds Vajpayee no longer a "petty politician".

Easily the most bogus encomium emanates directly from the headquarters at Nagpur. The Prime Minister is patted on the back for mobilising opinion at G-15 against certain provisions of the WTO! Perhaps Nagpur isn't aware that in their day Vajpayee's predecessors had done just that.

The single most important achievement of Vajpayee as Prime Minister is his memorable visit to Pakistan. Only a daring political figure couldhave undertaken the journey to Lahore and given it something of an extraordinary quality not associated with run-of-the-mill official visits. Through the Pakistan manoeuvre, he may well have cultivated an acutely political constituency which traditionally disdains his party the Muslims of India.In the foreseeable future this factor has the potential to re-set electoral coordinates in Vajpayee's favour against internal enemies as well as the opposition spearheaded by the Congress, unless this factor is overwhelmed by overtly negative ones, like the sticking of corruption charges.

To consolidate his position further, soon after the all-conquering Lahore caper, the Prime Minister launched into Bihar. In every respect this may prove to be a disaster for the BJP and the RSS. But, for the Prime Minister personally, the Bihar sortie helped to rally all elements of the ruling coalition, BJP and others, in spite of their misgivings.

All Vajpayee had to do to achieve this was to threaten resignation if thegovernment failed to get the proclamation of President's rule through in the Lok Sabha. This was politics at its most cynical. The Prime Minister commissioned the exercise knowing full well that the government did not have a ghost of a chance in the Rajya Sabha, and that this would embarrass the President. But, by going through with the game, he ensured that he had won the unofficial confidence vote right at the beginning of the Budget session of Parliament, signalling to the opposition to lay off.

Clearly, the message had the desired effect. If at all the Congress had any ideas of challenging the government during the Budget session, the fight went out of it after the Bihar episode. But the main opposition has been handed a fresh opportunity through the Guruswamy allegations (which some think might have been crafted through the aegis of some of Vajpayee's rivals for power) and the Admiral Bhagwat affair.

The Guruswamy charges seek to implicate the Prime Minister himself, but as of now remain justcharges. But these things have a way of snowballing, as corruption scandals in the past have shown.

In the same league is the signing of the CTBT by India, which the US wants done by this May. If the pressure is not resisted, the government would be doing the country a great disservice. If Vajpayee can successfully skirt the corruption charges, and stay out of CTBT until it is made part of the disarmament framework, there is little to stop him going on to the Budget session of the year 2000.