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It isn't only the Congress's myriad
problems that raise questions about the government lasting till
2014. What is no less worrisome for the voters is that the ruling
party's opponents are in an equally sorry state.
What this means is that the post-poll scenario, whether it is
later this year or early in the next, will be marked by
considerable political instability. In fact, this is the only
prospect which appears absolutely certain.
It is this belief that neither the Congress nor the Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP) will be able to provide a stable government,
which has made the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav
call on his Tamil Nadu counterpart, Jayalalithaa, in search of
forming a third alternative, about which his father, Mulayam Singh
Yadav, has talked for quite some time.
Prakash Karat of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M),
too, has spoken in favour of such an arrangement. He was, of
course, the driving force behind a similar endeavour in 2009 under
the Bahujan Samaj Party's Mayawati, which collapsed in a heap when
the Congress crossed the 200-seat mark in the 543-member Lok Sabha.
This time, however, Karat will be more hopeful because there isn't
the faintest chance of the Congress approaching any such figure.
All that the Congress will probably hope for is to get a few seats
more than the BJP so that it will be in a slightly advantageous
position when renegotiating its terms with its present-day allies
in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA).
But, even if the two main formations - the UPA and the BJP-led
National Democratic Alliance (NDA) - win, say, 300-odd seats
between them, there will still be a huge chunk of 240 seats with
the regional parties. It is this large group which has fuelled the
prime ministerial ambitions of Mulayam Singh Yadav and stoked the
longstanding Third Front dreams of Karat.
But the problem with such a group is its disparate nature. It
isn't only that the bases of its regional leaders are limited to
their respective states - Mulayam Singh's to UP, Jayalalitha's to
Tamil Nadu - their preoccupations are quite different.
For example, UP isn't bothered in the least with what is Tamil
Nadu's overriding concern at the moment - the issue of a Tamil
Eelam in Sri Lanka, which has made Jayalalithaa's government vow
to keep the Sri Lankan players out of the Indian Premier League
cricket matches in Chennai.
Apart from such local matters, which are of prime importance to
the regional leaders, nearly all of them are known to harbour
oversized egos. The reason is that they virtually run
single-person parties with dictatorial powers. For each of them to
be accommodative towards the others will be hugely difficult,
especially when it comes to the prime minister's post. It will be
safe to predict, therefore, that the proposed third front will
either be a non-starter or that it will fall before being set up.
The next certainty, therefore, about the post-poll scene - apart
from the chaotic political conditions - is the tug-of-war between
the UPA and the NDA about their constituents. In this respect, the
former is in a slightly better position because it is a larger
conglomerate comprising nearly a dozen parties compared to the
NDA's four.
The UPA's other advantage is that its present as well as former
partners like the Trinamool Congress are wary of moving too close
to the BJP lest they acquire the 'communal' tag and get alienated
from Muslims. This taint will persuade the NDA's former members
like the Biju Janata Dal to tread cautiously in the post-poll
arena. As is known, it is this smear which has made Nitish Kumar
target Narendra Modi.
The BJP's difficulty is that if it bows to the Bihar chief
minister's dictates, it may be able to prevent the NDA's
disintegration, but it will lose face. What is more, if it is
compelled to project someone else as the prime ministerial
candidate - whether L.K. Advani, who, as Sushma Swaraj says, can
be the PM nominee, or Sushma Swaraj herself - the saffron camp's
core group of supporters, the communal-minded Hindus, whose
virulent presence on the internet is a new feature of Indian
politics, will be greatly disheartened.
Therefore, between a listless NDA and a scam-tainted UPA, whose
first party, the Congress, is hobbled by two centres of power -
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and party president Sonia Gandhi -
the electorate will be hard put to make a choice.
Nor will the options of the voters be improved by the presence of
a medley of regional leaders whose visions are limited to their
own states.
Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst. He can be
reached at amulyaganguli@gmail.com
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