Nationally Confused Party?

The complexities of coalition politics can lead to strange outcomes, as NCP leader and Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar will discover. In the upcoming elections to five states he is expected to participate in the election campaign for candidates from the United Progressive Alliance and his party, the NCP. In Kerala, which goes to the hustings on April 13, he won’t be able to do both. That’s because the NCP is a coalition partner of the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) and Pawar is expected to campaign for NCP’s Mani C Kappan in the Pala constituency. His opponent, however, is four-time minister and Kerala Congress strongman K M Mani. So, in effect, Pawar will be campaigning against a candidate from the party with which the NCP is in coalition at the Centre.