Even when Sushma Swaraj said that she would resign from the Rajya Sabha and tonsure her head, Vajpayee did not tell her to behave. As Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Sushma had accepted Sonia Gandhi as the leader of the opposition and talked to her on affairs connected with the two houses. Neither Sushma nor her party ever demanded that the Congress should nominate somebody else to deal with them since Sonia Gandhi was ruled out on the basis of her foreign origin.

Vajpayee also maintained his silence when Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Uma Bharti submitted her resignation. And of course, there was no question of pulling up Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi who said: "Sonia is a jersey cow. Even shopkeepers are not ready to employ her (Sonia Gandhi) as a clerk. Rahul Gandhi is a hybrid calf. I will not even employ him as my driver."

I cannot imagine even in my wildest dream that Vajpayee was supporting them. But I can well imagine his silence in the face of an ugly and abusive campaign which the RSS orchestrated against Sonia Gandhi. He has always faltered when the occasion has arisen. He may well go down in history as a person who had healthy instincts but lacked the courage to put them to use.

What the BJP has done to stall the democratic process will haunt the party for years to come. It has written its own epitaph by not letting a leader with the support of some 320 in the 545-member Lok Sabha to become the Prime Minister. After losing at the polls, nobody thought that the BJP would resort to tactics of street urchins. It is not merely hitting below the belt; it was hitting at the very constitution and the legal system.

In 1999, the Supreme Court dismissed a petition, challenging Sonia Gandhi's election from Amethi on the ground that she was not a citizen of India. The Court said: "It must be held that Sonia Gandhi by virtue of certificate granted to her under 5 (i) © of the Citizenship Act, which has not been cancelled, withdrawn or annulled till date is a citizen of India."

There is no law to bar a person of foreign origin from holding public office in India. An unofficial bill brought to the Rajya Sabha a couple of years ago was not supported even by the BJP, much less other allies. The party did not make it an issue during elections. Wherever it did -- Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu -- the BJP and its allies were rejected lock, stock and barrel. Why is the BJP so churlish in not accepting the defeat at the hands of Sonia Gandhi when it had itself converted the polls into a clash of personality between Vajpayee and her?

True, the Congress won only 143 seats. But it had the support of the Left, the DMK, Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party and Laloo Prasad Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal. In addition, Mulayam Singh's Samajwadi Party and Mayawati's Bahujan Samajwadi Party had given their letters of support to the President in favour of the Congress. Except the Samajwadi Party and the BSP, all other parties met and elected Sonia Gandhi as their leader.

The BJP goes on saying that they accept the verdict "in humility" but does everything to sabotage it. Humility has to be in deeds, not in words. Even after the defeat, the party leaders have not given up the posture of arrogance which has been their undoing. In any case, their game is up for many, many years to come.

On the other hand, Sonia Gandhi has risen to the stature which Vajpayee did not attain in all the six years' rule. It is easy for the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to give Vajpayee the credit in a prepared statement. But it is a pity that the NDA did not have the grace to congratulate the parties which had won. It is customary.

By spurning the highest honour in the biggest democracy in the world, she, an Italian by birth, has told India-born politicians that there was something else beyond power: conviction and commitment. Sonia Gandhi was right when she said that she did not want to divide the country. A person who was not considered Indian had to tell the BJP and other members of the Sangh parivar, which do not stop talking about "nationalism", that she would rather step down than copy their ways. They have, indeed, done everything to polarise the society on communal lines. They should learn the lesson from what she has done to save the country from chaos which the fundamentalists and fanatics were determined to create.

In fact, she has done something more: saving the nation from the perennial suspicion which the Sangh parivar would have raised on every decision she would have taken as Prime Minister. They would have argued that she had done or not done such and such thing because of her foreign origin. She too would have bended backwards to prove her nationalistic credentials.

Sonia Gandhi put the BJP in the dock. Here was a party that fought for democracy and against the cult of force during the emergency. But it is the same party that has turned out to be anti-democratic and authoritarian. If the BJP can take the credit for playing a part in retrieving democracy in 1977, Sonia Gandhi can single-handedly claim to have restored secularism. The BJP has done its worst to saffronise education, culture and information. But pluralistic forces have emerged victorious with determination to clean up these fields.

What does the future hold for the country? The Left looks like creating problems. They have said: "The government would be watched as the policy direction of the new government is going to be determined with the formulation of a common minimum programme.

" Does it mean that the Left will be a supervisory body to judge whether the common minimum programme (CMP) has been implemented or not. This will only reduce the importance of the cabinet. It would be better if the Left were to join the government. It is an open secret that the CPI wanted to do so but was dissuaded by the CPI (M).

The Left must have watched the emotional scene in the central hall of Parliament when Sonia Gandhi refused to accept office and the Congress members her 'no'. Still, a consensus emerged. The Left must deal with the new government in the same spirit. Economic reforms should not hurt the common man as some of the steps taken by the NDA did. At the same time, the country cannot go back to the mantras which had stalled the progress. There will have to be give and take as much in economic sphere as in political.

Kuldip Nayar is an eminent Indian columnist