On the face of it, this was odd. A patchy-up coalition can do with all the support it can muster, particularly when the central plank of the coalition, the Congress, has only 145 seats, and the second largest bloc, the Marxists, are not willing to confirm their credentials by joining the new government. To drive away an existing or potential friend is poor politics at the best of times, as the BJP discovered at such high cost in the elections. If the BJP had stuck with the DMK and the Indian National Lok Dal, and wooed Sibu Soren in Jharkhand, it might have been a very different story. So why did Mrs Sonia Gandhi literally drive Amar Singh to the point where he was forced to say that he would never again go to 10 Janpath? Mulayam Singh Yadav's response has been to ask Comrade Surjeet to explain why Amar Singh and the Samajwadi Party were humiliated.

The easy answer is personality problems. It is also wrong.

Ego does matter in Indian politics. But at best it affects decisions, it does not drive them. Sonia Gandhi and Sharad Pawar have no particular fascination for each other, but they know that if they do not co-exist they will not exist in Maharashtra after the Assembly elections of September. This explains why Sharad Pawar is content with the agriculture portfolio he has got in the Union Cabinet. He can take credit for the Rs 500-crore package for drought-affected farmers in his state that was a priority decision of the Manmohan Singh government. Pawar cannot ensure rain from heaven, but he can ensure manna from Delhi.

The politics of Delhi will be heavily influenced by the impending struggle for power in the states. Assembly elections are due in Maharashtra, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Bengal and Bihar in the next two years, while in Uttar Pradesh the Mulayam government is dependent, ironically, on Congress support. In other words, an election is all but certain there too. Within a week of the dinner incident in Delhi, the Congress in UP decided that it would fight the next Assembly elections alone. This is not a final decision, but it is indicative of the new confidence within the party. The simple fact about UP is that both the SP and the Congress cannot win in the state; one has to displace the other. It is a struggle for survival, and Sonia Gandhi's aspiration to revive the Congress is as legitimate as Yadav's need to preserve his fortress. Their contest includes a tussle for the Muslim vote, and Yadav has the advantage of having -- possibly to the surprise of the voter -- lived up to his promise to support a non-BJP government in Delhi. After all, he did offer unconditional support, and can now claim that it was not his fault that it was not taken.

Sonia Gandhi, similarly, knows that if the Congress has to rise above 145, the party has to recover in UP. The last time the Congress won in this state was in 1984, when Rajiv Gandhi swept all before him. Since then, the pre-eminent party of India has been whittled towards the margins, barely able to enter double digits.

Sonia Gandhi has less space for manouvre in Bihar, where Laloo Yadav has not left much wiggle-room. He has indicated that he wants early elections, since the Lok Sabha results have restored his morale. Sonia Gandhi may be able to hand over Railways to Laloo in Delhi when he wants Home, but as far as Bihar is concerned Laloo is the king. He will decide when he wants the elections, and he will decide who gets how many seats. If Sonia Gandhi bargains in Bihar, it will be at the cost of weakening her government in Delhi: the exchange rate is not in her favour. Bihari Congressmen must therefore wait for another five years before Sonia Gandhi is in a position to ignore Laloo in the way she has ignored his fellow Yadav in UP. On the other hand, if the Supreme Court indicts Laloo, the Congress will get a chance to displace him in Delhi. Laloo believes that the cases against him were politically motivated, and now that the politics of Delhi have changed, the judgments of Delhi will also change. However, power in Bihar is his main meal; the Cabinet post in Delhi is merely soufflé: nice, but not substantive.

The elections in Kerala and Bengal are the last on the calendar, and so problems emanating from them are last on the list. Last, but perhaps also the most difficult. The Marxists, who see the destruction of the BJP as the immediate and necessary political goal, have made life easy for Sonia Gandhi by staying out of the Central government. Is that generosity for five years or a temporary reprieve? The answer will come when the Assembly election comes nearer. The Congress cannot surrender Kerala and put up a mock fight in Bengal to appease the Left. Nor can the Left afford any generosity, if for no other reason than that its space is restricted to these two states and Tripura.

The contradiction before the Marxists is apparent. They cannot say that the Congress is running a fine government in India but will be a disaster in Bengal or Kerala. The logic wears thin. This is why the Bengal and Kerala leaders so strongly opposed participation in the Central government. Pleading that the Left is supporting the Congress in Delhi only to keep the BJP out might work only to a limited extent. Bengal is of course the key. So far, brilliant electoral management and some luck have kept the anti-incumbency factor muted in Bengal. But Indian democracy, as Chandrababu Naidu has discovered, can be dangerously unpredictable. A mistake in Bengal could become debilitating.

Moreover, two years later the government in Delhi will not look as cheerful as it looks now. Even the new faces will seem like old faces, and there are enough old faces to begin with. (Mrs Sonia Gandhi has reserved the really new faces for the next Congress government.) Since there is no magic wand in Delhi, the present regime will become vulnerable to mistakes, misjudgment, blunders and simple helplessness. The Left today is running with the hare and hunting with the hound; in two years, it could lose the teeth of the hound, and the popular underprivileged status of the hare. It is a trap that needs some careful monitoring.

There is nothing inevitable; but everything is possible. The desire to manage such contradictions is very strong in both the Congress and the Left, glued as they are by a common anger against the BJP. Those predicting early disaster for the government, are only expressing what they want to see happen, rather than basing their assessment on any rational analysis of ground realities. Power is not won easily, and therefore no one is willing to surrender it foolishly either. But politics is, in the end, not controlled by politicians; it is determined by the logic of power. The simple fact is that the principal allies at the Centre are old and unrelenting antagonists in the states.

Since the Assembly elections are, so to say, in an Assembly line, there could be a domino effect, with the results of one shaping the contours of the next. If the Congress-alliance can win Maharashtra in September, it leads to one set of consequences. If it loses, then another dynamic takes over. And so on.

The cat that stole the cream of this general election is sitting with 21 seats in the Lok Sabha and a growing vote across the country, including Bengal, long a favoured target of the BSP. Mayawati had the largest number of candidates in this election, and has surprised the conventional parties with the extent of her base. She may not be able to win Assembly elections alone, but she could determine who wins and who loses. It would be a mistake to treat her like a pawn on the emerging chessboard; she has the powers of a queen. Whatever is produced on the Assembly line will bear her stamp.

MJ Akbar is Chief Editor of the Asian Age.