Front for what?

When the two leading, supposedly all-India parties suffer one electoral setback after another, and face the prospect of getting (between them) fewer than half the votes and half the seats in the Lok Sabha elections two years hence, thoughts on a long summer day naturally turn to that old idea, of a 'third front'. This basically explains the Hyderabad meeting of non-UPA, non-NDA parties who think they can float a combine which could derisively be called UNDA but shouldn't.

Certainly, Sharad Yadav, leader of the JD (U) who has always been a great votary of Third Fronts when he is not in office, seems to think so. He told journalists on Friday that even if such a front were formed "" which he didn't seem to think was likely "" it was not going anywhere, either in the forthcoming presidential election or in the 2009 general elections.

He was not alone. The Communists, who till recently were all for a Third Front, also pooh-poohed it. "It is an electoral get-together with no specific programmes and ideas. It will have no relevance as it will not help in the development of a proper third front," it said, adding, "A third front has to emerge through a common struggle with ideas, programmes and policies."

That is true enough""a 'front' has to stand for something other than simply being a collection of individual entities. Arguably, you could look for a common platform that stands in opposition to communal and dynastic politics, but since most state and caste-based parties have become dynastic too, and/or have slept with the BJP, this is not a very credible position to adopt.

A new front could also stand for those disaffected by the current trend of social and economic policies, but the people who met in Hyderabad would carry little credibility on that score either. As it turned out, therefore, Chandrababu Naidu, Jayalalithaa, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Amar Singh, Brindavan Goswami, Om Prakash Chautala, Babulal Marandi, Vaiko (MDMK) and S Bangarappa were not trying to do anything more than test the waters. They met for three hours and had a limited agenda: develop a common strategy for the presidential and vice-presidential elections and see how it worked out.

When you look at the votes they represent, they do stack up quite well. In the presidential election due next month, they account for about 12 per cent of the votes in the electoral college. This could be crucial because the BJP is not enough of a force on its own, and the Congress faces the threat of cross-voting.

If (a big if, that) the front partners can work out a modus vivendi, and if the cards fall right, they could become a relevant political force. After that bargaining would take over. And, as everyone knows, bargaining normally leads to better outcomes because it allows bargainers to achieve mutually acceptable optima. Indeed, that is what democracy is all about.

Third Front life, sadly, is never that efficient because it gets complicated by the pettiness of individual motives rather than the collective principles which dominate it. Whether it was the Socialists of the 1950s and 1960s, or the Janata Party of the 1970s and the Janata Dal of the 1980s, or the National Front of the 1990s "" the story has always been the same through many decades.

The personal ambitions of the prima donnas of the constituent parties invariably poop the party. Thus consider: if, by some miracle, the Third Front (2007 model) does become roadworthy, who will drive it "" Naidu-garu or Amma? Remember how messy the relationship between Morarji Desai and Charan Singh, and between V P Singh and Devi Lal, was?