A coup should be appreciated. The chief minister of Chhattisgarh, Mr Ajit Jogi, has apparently pulled one off. If the fuming Bharatiya Janata Party leaders are to be believed, the decision of the 12 BJP legislators to join the Congress is entirely the chief minister's doing. But sulks are not explanations, and cannot stand in for introspection. However, since the move has raised the number of Congress seats to 62 in the 90-member Chhattisgarh assembly, the knee-jerk reaction on the part of the BJP is not too surprising. The walkover by the dissident legislators has been managed with a technical flawlessness that has made the BJP leadership impotent. To avoid the anti-defection law, the former BJP members of the legislative assembly formed their own party, the Chhattisgarh Vikas Party, for a day, and then announced their decision to join the Congress. Whatever the plot underlying the quick-change drama, Mr Jogi is suddenly on a better wicket than he was. Suspect among some of his partymen because his tribal antecedents were held up to question, and having pipped powerful rivals like Mr V.C. Shukla to the post of chief minister, Mr Jogi's performance had recently come in for growing criticism. But now his unit in Chhattisgarh is big enough to enable the Congress to send two members to the Rajya Sabha from the state. Mr Jogi is excusably smug, citing discontent among the BJP ranks as reason for the split, and foreseeing such splits in other states soon. He himself, however, might have to shuffle his cabinet around a bit, in order to reward the quick changers. Discontent has a habit of spreading. The BJP has to be content at the moment with inquiry teams and the threat of a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into allegations of horsetrading. There is also a nuanced promise of violence, since agitations are being encouraged in the assembly segments of the dissident MLAs. None of this is a solution. If the BJP is serious about preventing such mishaps in the future, then the report of the Central team looking into causes and effects of the split should act as a basis for introspection. In many ways, the BJP has been extraordinarily lucky. The December 13 Parliament attack has probably improved its chances in the forthcoming Uttar Pradesh assembly elections and, if the high command plays it right, the Central government may even be able to push through the prevention of terrorism ordinance. The Chhattisgarh episode is a sudden drawback. The experience may impel the party to pay more attention to its state units, because quite a few assemblies will be elected in the next two years. Chhattisgarh, for example, goes to the polls in 2003. Making a villain of Mr Jogi is rather unproductive under the circumstances.