India recently focused on two major incidents. First communal clashes in Gujarat and second — the VHP’s threat to start temple construction at Ayodhya.

Between these two issues, people and the media forget that a government is to be installed in the country’s most populous state — Uttar Pradesh.

The February elections have given a fractured verdict with no single party in a position to form the government. Now more than a month since the elections, the contours of a popular government are still not in sight.

The newly elected legislators of the 403-member state assembly have been cooling their heels since the state was brought under the president’s rule last month. Though former Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party became the single largest party by winning 146 seats, it fell far short of a majority of 202.

Being the leader of the single largest party, Mulayam staked his claim to form the government but was refused. The governor’s refusal was unprecedented and unconstitutional. Mulayam should have been given a chance to form the government.

In 1996, though short of majority, Atal Behari Vajpayee, representing the single largest party, was called by the president to form the central government. But the Uttar Pradesh governor overlooked this precedent and recommended presidential rule, putting the legislature into suspended animation. Mulayam cried foul. Although Mulayam said he will prove a majority in a month’s time, the reluctance of the Congress party, which won 26 seats, to side with him possibly weighed in the governor’s decision.

Though the Samajwadi Party leaders called the governor’s recommendation “a murder of democracy”, privately they admit they were not surprised at the governor’s action. The president’s rule has given them breathing space and during the space, the party will try to seek support from breakaway legislators.

In fact, not only the Samajwadi Party, rather all political parties have started their game of luring more and more MLAs into their fold.

The politics in this Hindi heartland is like a game of chess as parties working to secret plans take one small step at a time.

The BJP that lost power in the state and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) appear inching toward a tie-up, although neither is yet willing to admit to it. Their game plan could well be to keep Mulayam’s party from power.

That the BJP approves of the governor’s decision is clear as the Union Cabinet also approved the recommendation for the president’s rule in the state.

After last month’s rout of the BJP, the party vowed to sit in the opposition in Uttar Pradesh. But the outgoing Chief Minister Rajnath Singh hinted that the party could back another party’s bid for power.

Obviously, the other party could only be the BSP, given the deep animosity between the BJP and the Samajwadi Party.

The BSP is a sworn enemy of the Samajwadi Party and BJP both. The cat has been let out of the proverbial bag by approving the governor’s move to clamp president’s rule.

While the Samajwadi Party and Congress decried the governor’s decision, BSP leader Mayawati said it was a “constitutional compulsion” in view of the ruptured mandate. She resigned her Parliament seat to lead her party’s 98 legislators in their quest to form a state government.

Although Mayawati will not admit she seeks BJP support, such is indeed the BSP’s intention. It is supported by her refusal to criticize the BJP government in Gujarat for the violence.

Another issue on which the BSP is breaking away from the rest of the opposition is the Ayodhya dispute. Opposition parties and even some BJP allies had warned the government against allowing the VHP to begin building a temple from March 15 on the site of the demolished Babri Mosque.

But Mayawati backed Vajpayee’s attempts to get Muslims to approve this step; she never opposed the VHP’s plan to start building the temple on the site. She also refused to back the opposition’s demand that the government ban the VHP and other right-wing Hindu groups as it had outlawed certain Muslim groups.

All these are pointers that Mayawati’s party and the BJP are trying to form an alliance and take power in Uttar Pradesh. Should the BSP and BJP come together, the wheel would turn a full circle. The two parties’ last tie-up lasted barely six months in 1997 and then broke up violently.

It is sad that political parties do not learn from the past.