Newslaundry Podcast

In this week’s podcast, Abhinandan Sekhri is joined by Anand Vardhan and Manisha Pande. Also joining them is political journalist and author of Politics of Jugaad: The Coalition Handbook, Saba Naqvi.The discussion kicks off with Saba’s new book. Saba also briefly describes the farmers' coalitions and the constant splitting of party members from the Congress that kept it at an unstable position in UP. “Most of us who follow politics seem to believe the change happened with Mandal and Mandir…[however] The history of this [coalitions]… goes back to the late sixties,” she says.Abhinandan asks Anand whether coalitions can form a “stable government”. He also asks him about Bihar politics. “Coalitions depend on the reciprocity of interest,” responds Anand, and further mentions that politicians must embody reciprocal interests in case situations for a coalition arise. He also mentions that the only benefit with “stable governments” is that the policies for different stakeholders are kept constant and that these stake