On The New Indian Govt

The Washington Post in it’s editorial on the “election verdict”:https://varnam.org/archives/000385.html in India writes
bq. The sharpest discontinuity is likely to come in relations with the United States and possibly with U.S. allies such as Israel. India has become a leading customer for Israeli weapons technology. With Mr. Vajpayee in office, the Bush administration hoped that India might be persuaded to send peacekeepers to Iraq — a remarkable shift from the Cold War, when India proudly led the Non-Aligned Movement and seized every opportunity to tweak American leadership. The Congress Party-led coalition is expected to swing back to traditional anti-Americanism, sounding off against the United States at the United Nations and perhaps challenging U.S. influence in the Middle East by launching its own peace initiative. All of which would test the Bush administration’s reserves of forbearance and tact. But then again, who knows? India’s democracy excels at defying expert predictions.
The “article in L.A Times”:http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-india14may14,1,2026196.story?coll=la-headlines-world had a quote on the alliance between Congress and Communists.
bq. “I don’t think that this honeymoon between the Congress and the Left Front Alliance is going to last for a long time,” political scientist Amal Mukherjee said in Calcutta, where Communists continue to govern after winning elections for decades. “The reason is very simple: In West Bengal, the Left Front ? which has been opposing the Congress ? has always held the Congress responsible for all the ills of the state.”
The Economist also remarked about the “alliance with the Communists”:http://economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2676962
bq. Congress, for its part, traditionally too proud for grubby coalition politics, had this time assembled an impressive haul of allies. But parliament is hung and, besides needing the support of the Left, it may also need to rely on one or two other uncommitted parties, of which the biggest are Samajwadi and the Bahujan Samaj, two lower-caste-based parties with their strength in India?s largest state, Uttar Pradesh. An unstable coalition government, relying on the support of the Communists, is unlikely to prove radical, and may be short-lived.
It was the Congress party which started the liberalization of the economy in 1991 and it was when Narasimha Rao was the Prime Minister that India established formal relations with Israel. But now with the Communists having a major say and already “disagreeing on policy”:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/676566.cms, it will be interesting to watch the balancing act of the new Prime Minister.