Firstly, Kalyan Singh has got his deserved comeuppance. He is the architect of the opportunist alliance which constituted a 90-member ministry packed with defectors and criminals. This ministry will be considered one of the lowest depths in the annals of Indian politics. The misrule by this disreputable bunch of power grabbers was a major reason for the BJP's debacle in the Lok Sabha elections in the state.

Secondly, the BJP has lost its much-vaunted image of a party of principles, even if it be of the Hindutva variety. The unseemly wranglings which broke out between the upper castes and backward groups in the leadership was barely contained by a truce a few moths before the Lok Sabha elections. The assurance given to the dissidents (backed by Vajpayee) was that the Chief Minister would be changed after the elections were over. That the truce was ineffective is clear from the subsequent developments. Kalyan Singh could barely conceal his anger at the prospect of his removal after the elections. His trusted follower Sakshi Maharaj revolted and openly campaigned for the Samajwadi Party. In turn the Vajpayee loyalists accused Kalyan Singh of sabotaging work in the Prime Minister's constituency in Lucknow.

Thirdly, the BJP without yet having become a dominant bourgeois party like the Congress in its heyday, is already afflicted with the disease which plagued the latter -- chronic factionalism, power-mongering and corruption. Vaghela in Gujarat was no aberration. The UP event shows that power has corroded the BJP and more Vaghelas are in the making.

Kalyan Singh went to Ayodhya on the day of his ouster and defiantly declared that the abandonment of the Hindutva agenda, including the Ram temple, was the cause for the BJP's defeat in UP. By this he has signalled his determination to rally the hardcore Hindutva following and challenge the Vajpayee line. The other option open for Kalyan Singh is to make a bid for backward class consolidation. Either way the BJP is in for troubled times. Its allies in the NDA will draw the necessary conclusions from this affair. A BJP weakened by internal dissensions will be more open to pressure from its partners. Within the RSS camp those chaffing at the restraints placed on raising "contentious issues" based on the Hindutva platform, will be tempted to break the facade of consensus brought about by the compulsions of coalition politics.