The regional parties are talking of a post-poll alliance. No one knows what will emerge from Pandora's Box
The idea of a Third Front consisting of non-Congress and non-BJP parties keeps popping up now and then. It has gained focus once again in the media after Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav pointed out in a public meeting in Sangli (Maharashtra) recently that coalition Governments have come to stay and, therefore, a union of parties ‘committed to social change’ in Maharashtra, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, is good.
This is not the first time a political leader had made such a statement. Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had also talked about it some time ago. There were other leaders like TDP supremo Chandrababu Naidu who floated such an idea.
While the coalition era has come to stay for the past two decades, the track record of such initiatives is far from savoury. The Janata Party Government came in 1977 when all shades of political parties opposed to the Congress came together to form that Government. This lasted for a few months, after which the Charan Singh Government propped up, but disappeared in three months. The next such coalition experiment was the National Front Government led by VP Singh and supported by the Right and the left parties in 1989. This too lasted about 18 months after which the Chandrashekhar Government came in for a few months. It was the Congress once again which played the villain by pulling down the Government. The BJP-led NDA came into being in 1998 but this lasted for 13 months when it was pulled down by AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa, supported by the Congress. The NDA came back to power in 1999 but lost to the Congress-led UPA in 2004. Since then the UPA has been ruling.
Why does the Third Front concept pop up every now and thenIJ When national parties become weak, yielding to the dominance of regional parties, the idea of a Third Front surfaces. Right now both the Congress and the BJP have shrunk and seem to have lost their national appeal. Even the left parties are fast losing their national identity and confining themselves to a few pockets. After the defeat in West Bengal and in Kerala, the left is now confined to ruling Tripura.
Having established their respective political fiefdoms, the regional satraps aspire for a greater say in determining national priorities. Bihar wants special status, West Bengal wants more money, while Tamil Nadu, Odisha and others have ganged up against the Centre on the National Counter-Terrorism Centre. They have prime ministerial aspirations too. This explains the sense of urgency in Mr Yadav’s efforts to reach out to leaders of non-BJP, non-Congress parties.
The national parties have begun to depend on the regional parties and would like to remain relevant by forging an alliance with them in the States. This is what the Congress has done in Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Jammu & Kashmir and Maharashtra, while the BJP has done it in Bihar, Karnataka, Jharkhand and other States. Where there is such an alliance it is the regional parties that grow.
In this confusing scenario is a Third Front viableIJ It may not be because the conflicting egos and ambitions among the regional satraps and mutual mistrust will ensure that the Third Front remains incoherent. Mr Yadav or any other Chief Minister who talks about a Third Front has a tough task ahead. The track record of such fronts proves that they have produced weak Prime Ministers in the past.
As the left parties are not in a position to play a pivotal role for such an initiative, at best such a grouping could be a motley group of regional satraps, each with his or her own political agenda. As CPI(M)’s Sitaram Yechury has said, the front is possible only by bringing in new set of policies and not just a new set of politicians.
Neither the Congress nor the BJP has sufficient numbers of its own in the lok Sabha but they both occupy enough political space to deny the viability of a non-Congress/non-BJP combine, at least in the near future.
Forging a Third Front and staying at the top of it will be one of the toughest challenges the Yadav chieftain will face in his political career. The regional parties are talking of a post-poll alliance. No one knows what will emerge from the Pandora’s Box. One can never be sure how the alliance would shape up finally. Is it possible for Ms Mamata Banerjee to align with a Third Front if the left is part of itIJ Will the SP and the BSP be on the same sideIJ What happens to the DMK and the AIADMKIJ The crucial point is: Who would lead this Third FrontIJ