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Scramble for power : Dynasty’s plans may come unstuck |
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The scramble for power in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) ruling at the Centre, and in the Indian polity as a whole, is set to intensify, with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh undergoing heart bypass surgery, when the Lok Sabha elections are barely three months away.
What is remarkable is that even the smaller constituents of the UPA are fancying their chances of coming up on top in the prime ministerial sweepstakes. The Nationalist Congress Party, NCP, which has just about ten seats in the Lok Sabha, thinks that its leader Sharad Pawar has ‘great ability’ to be the Prime Minister. It has raised the pitch in the seat-sharing negotiations with the Congress for the Lok Sabha elections. The party wants to be the dominant partner in Maharashtra, claiming 26 of the total 48 Lok Sabha seats from the state, as well as 15 seats in other states. Obviously, the NCP objective is that it should have a much higher leverage in the next Lok Sabha, which may help achieve Sharad Pawar’s ambition to occupy the top political position in the country.
The Samajwadi Party’s plans are no different. Its strategy for the coming electoral battle is also based on marginalisation of the Congress, which now heads the UPA. Mulayam Singh Yadav’s party has already announced the names of its candidates for over 50 of the total 80 Lok Sabha seats in the crucial state of Uttar Pradesh. With not much headway in the protracted Congress-SP seat-sharing talks, the Congress may ultimately have to remain content with 20 odd seats in the country’s most populous state. With the main fight in Uttar Pradesh expected to be between the resurgent Bahujan Samaj Party of Chief Minister Mayawati and Mulayam’s party, the Congress, along with the BJP, may remain a peripheral player, failing to go into double digits. The Congress had won just nine seats in the last Lok Sabha elections held in 2004.
What is disconcerting for the Congress is that with other allies also, the party is yet to reach firm seat-sharing pacts. The shape of things to come in another crucial state-Bihar-is uncertain, with the Congress yet to succeed in brokering peace between Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal, RJD, and Ram Vilas Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party, LJP. The field is also wide open in Tamil Nadu, with DMK president and Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi issuing his final ‘ultimatum’ to the Centre on bringing about a ceasefire in Sri Lanka, and ending what he calls the massacre of innocent Tamils there.
Significantly, the tactics of the UPA constituents and supporting parties like the NCP and the Samajwadi Party are in tune with those of the Left, which is tying to prop up a third front or third alternative to both the Congress and the BJP. The Left strategy is to defeat the BJP and weaken the Congress, even though CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat has not succeeded in roping in Mayawati’s BSP into the front in the northern states.
If the UPA constituents and supporting parties like the NCP and the Samajwadi Party and the Left parties working for a third alternative succeed in their plans, the stage will be set for another United Front like coalition, to be headed by the most acceptable of the leaders of the constituent parties. Mulayam Singh Yadav, Sharad Pawar and Mayawati will all be in contention for the top position in such a scenario. The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty’s plan to catapult Rahul Gandhi to the top after jettisoning Dr. Manmohan Singh midway during the tenure of the next Lok Sabha will then be overtaken by the turn of events.
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