If at that time she represented 27 MPs, today she represents only 18 members. Even so the fact that the BJP today commands the assured support of just 255 members in a House of 542 is indisputable. Spokesmen of the ruling coalition claim that the government continues to enjoy majority support. In the past, the President had sought to end such confusion by asking the incumbent prime minister to prove his majority within a stipulated time. Thus Narayanan was within his constitutional rights to ask Vajpayee to go in for a trial of strength in the House.The President has not specified a time limit for proving majority because, unlike in the past, Parliament is already in session andis scheduled to meet today after a three-week recess. There is a large body of public opinion which belives that a Presidential directive is superflous as the opposition, in any case, gets ample opportunities to force the government to face a vote in the House.

The opposition's original plan to bring forward a no-confidence motion against the Vajpayee ministry was perfectly in order. Under parliamentary rules, the notice for such a motion gets precedence over all other items on the House's agenda. A debate on the motion will show on which side of the divide the parties are and thereby remove much of the confusion that exists now. Of course, the opposition parties seem to be united on bringing down the government but they have no clear idea what they propose to do afterwards. For instance, while the DMK will have no truck with any government which has the support or presence of the AIADMK, a problem the Left also shares to some extent, the Congress is yet to make up its mind on whether to support agovernment from the outside or take the lead to form a government of its own. The four-member Indian National Lok Dal, which was the first to walk out of the coalition, insists that while it will vote against the BJP, it will never support a Congress government. It is this confusion in the opposition ranks that encourages the BJP to claim that it can face the House. After all, minority governments are not a new phenomenon as the Congress party's P.V. Narasimha Rao managed to complete a full term despite lacking a clear majority for most of the period.

But that is no excuse for balking at a trial of strength. Even if the President had not asked the government to prove majority, it was in Vajpayee's own interest to take the initiative and table a confidence motion. In the early seventies when doubts were expressed about the support the first C. Achutha Menon ministry in Kerala enjoyed, the chief minister had the foresight to introduce a confidence motion and catch the CPI(M) off guard. It paid rich dividendsto Menon, who within a short time went in for fresh elections and inflicted a crushing defeat on the Marxists. Any other attempt will only strengthen the suspicion that the government does not enjoy majority support. This will not only strike at the root of the government's credibility but also render it susceptible to manipulations by others in the coalition who are only keen to play Jayalalitha's role.