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| Emergence of third front | | |
Kushal Jeena
The sudden spurt in the activities of the non-NDA and non-UPA parties for the formation of a third alternative seems causing serious trouble for Congress, which stands to lose heavily to new political formation particularly in southern parts of the country.
The ruling Congress is already paying price aftter it main rival Telgu DesamParty in Andhra Pradesh joined hands with the Left parties and Telengana Rashtra Samiti, a regional outfit that has strong following in Telengana region, and formed an alliance called 'Mahakutumbakam'. The worry was evident from the Congress President Sonia Gandhi's recent speeches in Andhra Pradesh in which she admitted party's fault on separate Telengana state and clarified that her party had never been against Telengana.
The move was aimed at wooing TRS back to Congress folds. In the previous elections TRS had allied with Congress on the assurance that the party if comes to power at the Centre would pave the way for the creation of separate Telengana state. After Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government came to power, TRS also joined the Union Council of Ministers. Two of its ministers quit the government and walked out of alliance after Congress leadership failing to honour its assurance. In the last elections Congress and its allies had swept the Telengana region.
Congress had bagged 10 of 16 seats, TRS won 5 and CPI got one seat in the region. The Congress had bagged majority of Lok Sabha and assembly seats in Telengana region with the support of TRS in the last elections. The situation has taken a U turn this time as the TRS is standing with TDP and Left parties giving sleepless nights to the state and central Congress leadership. The situation for the Congress worsened following the launching by former Prime Minister and JD (S) leader HD Devegowada the third front on March 12 at a huge rally at Tumkur in Karantaka.
In the last Lok Sabha elections, Congress has won majority of seats from Andhra Pradesh and Karnatka. The formation of the Third Front - an amalgamation of eight parties including the Left is billed as a political alternative to the Congress and the BJP. "The Third Front would be launched in Karnataka on March 12 with a rally at Tumkur," announced H D Devegowda, former Prime Minister and JD (S) leader. The coming together of eight secular parties has virtually panicked the Congress leaders, who are apprehensive of loosing some of its UPA allies in case parties in third front manage to bag over hundred seats.
Besides, the leaders of third front has also pinned their hopes on secular parties in the NDA like JD (U) and AGP. "In Karnataka the CPM along with the CPI and Forward Bloc have decided to tie up with the JD (S) and the Left leadership had already held talks in this regard with the former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda. On March 12, Deve Gowda and Mr. Prakash Karat will jointly address a Third Front 'samavesha' at Tumkur," said CPI (M) leader Varadrajan.
The main plan behind hurriedly putting up a rag-tag third alternative is to upset Congress applecart in south India as the ruling party had come to power with influential vote and support from the southern states. It did improve its tally in northern parts of the country but that was negligible as the party failed to perform well in northern states like Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. After putting third front in place on March 12, the leaders of this formation has plans to rope in some of the influential allies of NDA like JD (U) of Nitish Kumar and BSP of Mayawati. Even though attempts of Left leaders to persuade Mayawati to join the third front proved futile in the past, still they see no harm in trying once again. If things fall in line as the Left leaders are contemplating and a proper third front with Mayawati and Nitish on board comes up in the post poll fractured mandate, it would hit UPA badly than the NDA because such a scenario has the potential of Congress loosing some of its allies like Ram Vilas Paswan of LJP and Sharad Pawar of Nationalist Congress Party.
The political activities that are fast taking place but yet to come up third front are also causing concern for the BJP, as it also has the chance of being hit by new realignment of political forces. Officially the party has dubbed the third front as a non entity and non starter. However, in informal talks senior BJP leaders admit that the third front if it takes shape has the potential of upsetting all the equations as all the parties in the new formation have secular credentials.
"The third front is no alternative to the United Progressive Alliance. That alternative is the National Democratic Alliance. The third front is a no front," said Ravi Shankar Prasad spokesman of BJP. However, his interpretation of third was that in the event of the NDA failing to get a majority on its own, "some of the parties in the third front would come towards NDA provided opposition alliance is ahead of the UPA in numbers. The Left parties particularly CPI (M) leader Prakash Karat was very keen that the third alternative materializes and worked overtime to realize this dream, which could provide him a face shaving in the post poll scenario. In fact, he wants to create a situation in which UPA even if it emerges as largest formation could not form the government without the support of Left parties. To achieve this goal he is banking heavily on AIDMK, JD (S), TDP and TRS. He can only save his face if these four grouping muster over 50 seats altogether replacing Left block. He receive a major boost by pulling Naveen Patnaik into their camp.
A section of Congress leadership differs with the view that coming up of a new front would harm the electoral prospects of Congress in southern states. This section is of the view that the coming together of Left, TDP and TRS in AP and JD (S) in Karnataka is not going to fetch them much dividend. They argue that in AP a new political party Praja Rajyam, which was formed by Chiranjeevi, a super star of Telugu films would be cutting into the mass base of TDP because Chiranjeevi and Chandrababu Naidu have same support
base. In such a situation Congress can easily be benefited by division of votes in coastal region, where TDP has a hold. Similarly, in Karnataka, it is not the JD (S) which is strong but the ruling BJP, which is in a direct fight with the Congress. An entry of a third secular player in the fray would cut into votes of the Congress, which has made communalization of state as it major poll plank in the state particularly after the incident in Mangalore where teenage girls were beaten up for going to a pub.
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