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Congress, BJP keep doors open for post-poll allies |
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With the Indian polity becoming fractured to an extent where not even an alliance of several parties can be hopeful of retaining or regaining power at the Centre in the coming Lok Sabha elections, both the Congress, which heads the United Progressive Alliance, and the BJP, which leads the National Democratic Alliance, are keeping their doors open for new allies in the post-poll era. The BJP, which tried its best in the past few months to attract more allies, has virtually given up the game and conceded that it can taste the fruits of victory again at the Centre only with post-poll allies. Its top leaders have conceded that the NDA, consisting at present of BJP plus six regional parties, cannot hope to win power in New Delhi on its own.
As of now, the BJP has been able to get the support of only two new allies, the Asom Gana Parishad in Assam, and Om Prakash Chautala’s Indian National Lok Dal in Haryana. Only four of the earlier partners in the NDA, which consisted of over two dozen parties when the alliance was in power, now remain with the combine - the Janata Dal (United) in Bihar, the Shiromani Akali Dal in Punjab, the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra and the Biju Janata Dal in Orissa. Another significant feature of the NDA phenomenon
is that the allies are now much more assertive than when the BJP-led alliance was in power. Difficult negotiations lie ahead for the BJP on the allocation of Lok Sabha seats in the states, where the regional allies are the dominant parties. And also, nobody can be certain about the continuance of the allies in the combine. Some of them, as secular parties, are quite sensitive about the ‘hidden’ Hindutva agenda of the BJP.
The Congress is also having its troubles on holding on to existing partners and attracting more allies. The Samajwadi Party, which came to the rescue of the Manmohan Singh Government at the time of the July 22 trust vote, is proving to be a hard nut to crack so far as the question of seat-sharing with the Congress in Uttar Pradesh is concerned. While negotiations have been continuing between the Congress and the Samajwadi Party on seat-sharing in Uttar Pradesh for months, the results are not showing. Relations between the two parties are deteriorating with public display of acrimony and of inability to accommodate each other’s views. It is possible that an agreement may be reached with the intervention of the top leaders of the two parties, but the uneasy nature of their partnership may make it difficult for the two parties to challenge effectively Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh.
Apart from the Samajwadi Party, the Congress will also have to display a lot of political savvy to work out seat-sharing with parties like Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party, which wants to expand in a big way beyond Maharashtra. The party has also its task cut out to bring together the feuding Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) in Bihar. Only if these two parties combine well with the Congress, the UPA can checkmate the resurgent Janata Dal (United)-BJP alliance in the state.
The Congress is handicapped in the search for new allies, as in most states, it is the principal adversary of the dominant regional party or outfit, which is not the position in the case of the BJP. But in states like Uttar Pradesh, where it is a peripheral player, the party can benefit if it is able to sew up an effective arrangement with the Samajwadi Party.
The third front or third alternative sought to be propped up by the Left parties is also having teething troubles with Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati refusing to concede any seat to the Left in Uttar Pradesh and in most other states. Chandrababu Naidu, who has led his Telugu Desam Party to form an alliance with Chandrasekhar Rao’s TRS and the Left parties in Andhra Pradesh, has been trying to rope in Mayawati to join the third alternative, but his efforts have not met with much success. The Left parties have already conceded that it may not be possible to have an alliance or seat-sharing with the BSP for the Lok Sabha elections. Mayawati is sticking to the BSP gameplan, which was formulated by the party founder Kanshi Ram, of going it alone and having only post-poll alliances to taste the fruits of power.
In the scenario which is emerging, ideological affinities may not play a major role after the elections. What will important will be combining to share the spoils of power. An era of unprincipled alliances and combinations lies ahead.
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