Staunchly liberal about individual choice, we tend to be somewhat conservative about political/institutional relationships. Hence our devout wish that a particular live-in political relationship be given the sanctity of marriage: the Left should tie the institutional knot with the Congress and move in to the government. The main reason to bless this union is the nature and number of out-of-wedlock decisions. The latest of these is the Left clearing moderate disinvestment of profit-making, non-navaratna PSUs. If this is to be the government’s policy, and if this was arrived at as a compromise between the Congress’s and the Left’s points of view, the whole process would have been faster, more mature and less fractious had Left ministers been fighting within.

The same holds not only for most other economic reform issues, but also for social and foreign policies. Why have so many ex post meetings, threats and anonymous hatchet job briefings on Iran, when Left members of the Cabinet could have resisted the policy ex ante? The proposed nuptials can’t be opposed on grounds that the partners have fights when they travel out of New Delhi. Coalition politics is, or must be, an evolving art. Bihar, a fine laboratory for so many other political experiments, has shown state-level electoral adversaries can govern together at the Centre or be part of the same central political structure. Ram Vilas Paswan and Laloo Prasad Yadav are exemplars of the first, the CPM and CPI — they fought in different political blocs in Bihar — those of the second. The Left can, therefore, join the Congress in formally governing the country even if political realities demand battles in Bengal, Kerala, Tripura or elsewhere. The key phrase here is political reality.

The principle political reality today is the Left’s veto power on policy. The Left argues that it is important for the Congress and everyone else to recognise that. But equally it is important for the Left to recognise that power is best wielded encumbered by constitutional arrangements. Policy making is getting disinvested of its institutional rigour as the currently most influential political group sits outside the government. The coming weeks are apparently full of astrologically good days to get married. The Left and the Congress don’t need astrology. And any day they choose will be a good day for the principles of governance.