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| Tamasha before last phase | | |
The country is all set for last and final phase of polling on Wednesday and by May 16 it will be nearly clear as who forms next government in New Delhi. However, shortly ahead of the last phase it was the height of political drama which various parties enacted in a last minute effort to make the groupings as none of the entities are in any clear position to form the government at their own. For example, the rally in Ludhiana last Sunday of NDA parties — namely those that say they will rally round the BJP and no other party or grouping in a bid to form the next government at the Centre — was carefully timed. It was held only after the election was over in most parts of the country. To take an example, if the election in Bihar had not been concluded, it is doubtful that chief minister Nitish Kumar would have presented himself on a common platform with Gujarat leader Narendra Modi for fear of upsetting Muslim voters. Apart from carefully avoiding a situation in which the voters’ wrath may be reflected in the ballot box, the NDA’s projection is also likely to have been aimed at influencing post-election horse-trading through a supposed show of strength. Whether or not it was indeed that will become clear on May 16 when the result will be announced. However, looking at the current political weight of most of the leaders present on the stage, it can be said that the BJP has been surrounded by allies of greater relative heft in the past. The rally was possibly also aimed at impressing Rashtrapati Bhavan. It is the norm in parliamentary democracies that the leader of the largest single party in the House is given the first crack at government-making. In recent years, however, some have projected the argument — not with a great deal of conviction — that the leader of the largest "pre-poll alliance" or "front" rather than that of the largest single party be first invited to put together a government. There should be no surprise if this argument is pressed from the NDA side when the time comes. There will naturally be many counter-arguments even if the basic premise of this approach is accepted. The most important of these will be that the NDA "alliance" did not have a common manifesto. No doubt, it will also be said with justification that K. Chandrasekhar Rao of the Telangana Rashtra Samiti was a member of the informal Third Front right through the campaign even if he was drawn to Ludhiana in the hope of grabbing a better bargain than what the Left-led front had the potential to offer him. Until the concrete figures — the cold post-election data — are at hand, the likely moves of parties and fronts are best seen as efforts at pre-positioning. The Ludhiana tamasha, too, is an effort in that direction. So tenuous is the relationship with one another of the parties in any of the so-called fronts on offer that the voting public are expectantly waiting for the bold or brazen trapeze acts that may be in the offing.
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