Election predictions have a horrible way of going wrong. Still, it would seem safe to hazard the guess that, despite all the promising noises being made by all concerned, the Third Front does not look like it is going anywhere in a hurry. For one, there is the issue of the Bahujan Samaj Party chief and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Ms Mayawati, stating before a belated retraction that she is in only as long as she is the prime ministerial candidate, prompting the Samajwadi Party’s Amar Singh to allege that there is a covert understanding between the BJP and the BSP. Then, the Biju Janata Dal which has just snapped ties with the BJP has not fully endorsed the Front either — its spokespersons are saying that the party will support whichever government at the Centre promises it the best deal for Orissa (the kind of stance that Chandrababu Naidu extracted for Andhra Pradesh in return for his support to the National Democratic Alliance when it was in office). By way of contrast, the Left is an integral part of the Front but, judging by the way things are going in the two large states where it has a presence, it looks likely to come back with far fewer seats than it enjoyed in the 14th Lok Sabha.
For all that, the Front could well emerge as the key swing factor in the next Lok Sabha, especially if the AIADMK, BSP and Left between them win something like 100 seats (a number that is certainly within the realm of possibility). That would mean that it becomes hard for either of the two main parties to form any kind of stable government without the support of the Front. In other words, it would look as though India is probably headed for another coalition, far messier than either the NDA or the UPA that have ruled the country for the past 11 years; it will also be a coalition whose longevity becomes a matter of semi-permanent speculation.
That cannot possibly be good news for the economy. If the depressed global and local economic conditions aren’t enough to keep companies from investing, and investors abroad from sending in funds, a messy political scenario will act as a further deterrent. What should cause worry is the cost of such arrangements. Consider, for instance, the cost that the economy is paying right now for the UPA being in power — the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam pretty much decided the way the telecom ministry should be run and cocked a snook at even the Prime Minister who publicly objected to the manner in which the last lot of mobile phone licences was handed out for virtually a fifth or a sixth of their market value. The Nationalist Congress Party, similarly, runs the aviation ministry in the manner it wants; the evidence of the favouritism shown to the company running Delhi airport is too blatant to miss. Coal licences, till recently, were given out in an arbitrary manner ... the list goes on.
To repeat a point that this newspaper has made earlier, coalitions have taken on the nature of the old mansabdari system — the greater the number of horses (read soldiers) you can offer to the king, the greater the size of the territory for you to pillage. Not a very happy sign for an economy that faces a fiscal over-run, complex monetary challenges, risk to its credit ratings, and an economy-wide slowdown.