"Fiscal policy, exchange rate and inflation are indeed adversely affected. But a total disaster happens only when the political situation deteriorates badly, when there is musical chairs with each minister occupying office for a short period and announcing a new policy," the noted economist said.

The fact that slower economic growth accompanied the periods of political uncertainty is just "coincidental," Bhattacharya said. In 1979-80, the monsoon was bad and there was increase in oil prices. Similarly, in 1990-91 there were extra-political factors which caused the crisis.

"The contribution of the political factor is that if there is no Government or if there ispolitical uncertainty, ill-effects are unlikely to be mitigated," he said. If a new Government is formed in a few days, it will have two options, Bhattacharya said. Either to bring out a Budget in a hurry or, which is a more likely possibility, go for a vote on account. In that case, the budget can't be presented before July. "The vote on account can't be on this Budget (1999-2000), but on the last year's which was approved by Parliament," Bhattacharya said. The new budget will leave only eight or nine months for the Government to attain a reasonable GDP rate. "But the real issue is not the GDP rate. The real issue is reforms where the time horizon is much longer," said Shubhashis Gangopadhyay of the Indian Institute of Statistics.

If the new Government is as uncertain as this government, or is perceived to be, then investments won't take place. "Since growth depends heavily on investments, lower investments will mean lower growth. Though I am not a politician, I feel that the new Government will be a bitmore stable. And this will lead to a growth rate more than last year's," Gangopadhyay said.

His argument is that from now on small parties will adopt a less confrontationist attitude as fighting elections is not easy for them and bigger parties are better off in this regard.

Planning Commission member SP Gupta said that the immediate effect will indeed be "very depressing." And if the next government is dominated by the CPM, reforms will be adversely affected, as their labour lobby is very strong.

But he added that a GDP growth rate of 5.5 per cent should be possible as agriculture production has been good. "The BJP government did not cause any major discontinuity in the Ninth Plan. I hope the new government follows suit and does not make major changes in it."

Pranab Sen, advisor, perspective planning, Planning Commission, is also quite optimistic about the continuity of the Ninth Five Year Plan (1997-2002). "The plan was began by the Congress government, developed by the United Front, and implementedby the BJP-led combine. So, I feel that there won't be much problem on the the continuity of the plan."