The post-Bombay Congress-BJP bipartisanship against terrorism has a narrow band of supporters in both parties. So it is hard to say if it will survive vicious campaigning on either side or by the Congress's UPA allies in the general elections merely three months away, and certainly it depends on whether poll results strengthen or weaken coalition politics.

While the BJP and the Congress were forced to take coalition parties to form governments in 1998, 1999 and 2004, the BJP's prime ministerial nominee, L.K.Advani, has conceded more readily than the Congress on the imperative of bipartisan politics. The dynastic Congress, unused to an opposition and abhorring any that existed till its 1977 defeat, reluctantly followed the BJP's National Democratic Alliance (NDA) model. But the parting with the Left on the Indo-US nuclear deal and the unreliability and opposition of its other UPA allies pushed the Congress to seek the BJP's cooperation to toughen existing laws against terrorism and to create an FBI-like anti-terror agency.

But the Congress is simultaneously trapped in Muslim votebank politics and its over-flogged "threadbare ideology" called secularism. So it fears extinction by pursuing bipartisanship with the BJP beyond specifics. Even this pursuit is by a Congress handful, including prime minister Manmohan Singh, foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee, most doughtily home minister P.Chidambaram (who collaborated with the BJP's former law minister, Arun Jaitley, in toughening the anti-terror law), and blessed by Sonia Gandhi, the party president.

But the rest of the party, including troublesome cabinet ministers like Arjun Singh and A.R.Antulay, and a legion of Congress leaders outside government (the likes of former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijay Singh), are or would be unhappy with this collaboration. They may find an opportunity to express their opposition during the general elections. Depending on which way the political wind blows, Sonia may stay neutral on bipartisanship or sanction criticism.

The BJP, on the other hand, is tied down by Advani's enthusiastic embrace of bipartisanship and bipolar politics. His point is unassailable - that mainstream or national parties (BJP and Congress) think nationally while multiple regional parties, which have a numerical majority in the current Lok Sabha, cannot outgrow regional mindsets. Lord Meghnad Desai says that "regional parties moored in primordial loyalties (of) the 1980s and 1990s (have) seriously impacted the economic growth of the country". His solution is several orders more than bipartisanship, which is a coming together of the BJP and Congress in a "grand coalition", which is as seriously anathema to the Congress, as it is politically unreal and unfeasible.

But BJP insiders, especially those close to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), are themselves concerned with some of Advani's ideas. Being in the coalitional NDA, they say, diluted core BJP positions on a Ram temple at Ayodhya, Article 370, and a uniform civil code, and they resent the demand of NDA partners for more and more Lok Sabha seats disadvantaging the BJP. They understand the national need for bipartisanship to counter terrorism. But they are concerned that an excess of it may deprive the BJP of its muscular anti-terrorism plank in the general elections.

Hardest to figure, though, is the easy connection that supporters of bipartisanship around Advani draw with strengthening the mainstream parties, when conventional thinking is that the coming general elections will see a further depletion of Congress and BJP seats. Unless national issues like terrorism, economic growth and poverty-reduction are articulated by both parties nationally, even at the cost of angering their regional allies, the BJP and Congress may not be able to arrest their decline. Plus, both parties have to overcome opposition of their allies and fight in all the seats they can conceivably win. Even if all this were possible (extremely unlikely), the experiment may fail for both or one, and failure will put bipartisanship in a bad way for years, which will be tragic.

What is a reasonable risk to take? It's not about risk but intent. A.B.Vajpayee had no personal political calculation when he supported Mrs Indira Gandhi's 1974 nuclear test. It tied with Jan Sangh policy and there always existed a Centre-Right consensus on core security issues. Vajpayee also called Mrs Gandhi Durga after the 1971 war victory. P.V.Narasimha Rao invited Vajpayee to head an Indian delegation to the UN Human Rights Commission Conference in 1993 when Kashmir was being debated, and Vajpayee praised Narasimha Rao for nuclear test preparations that made Pokhran II possible. Vajpayee also quietly got the Left to oppose any Indian army deployment in Iraq and thus successfully overcame US pressure.

Such give-and-take has always existed (without taking the form of bipartisanship until recently) despite the remarkable and often conflicted transformation of Indian politics from near one-party rule to the emergence of two reasonably stable coalitions. Any attempt to strengthen national agenda-making must mould the natural order of politics gradually to its way because fighting it guarantees failure. The proponents of robust bipartisanship would, therefore, be well-advised to return to poll preparations and make the necessary disengagements responsibly and honourably. As the saying goes, Rome was not built in a day.