Mint Quick Edit | NDA coalition: Case for optimism

livemint.com:

Now that Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has taken oath as Prime Minister of India for the third time, virtually every move of his new government will be studied for clues of an imprint left by the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and Janata Dal-United (JDU), allies on which the regime will depend for a majority in Parliament henceforth. Signs of cohesion are likely to cheer the stock market, and the key to coalition success lies in recognizing that politics need not be a zero-sum game, but political constraints can’t be ignored.

Even as the TDP and JDU seem to get disproportionate leverage, they would want to keep their brand identities set apart in electorate perception to reduce the risk of their vote base being weaned away by the BJP. If they diverge on the politics of identity, however, they could converge on an economic agenda, given a common interest in a similar model of development.

Unless coalition dynamics go awry, we can plausibly expect a pursuit of Pareto-like optimality on national matters, even as Andhra Pradesh and Bihar are first among equals on operative federalism. All said, India’s new power matrix could serve the economy’s emergence well.