In politics, it has been said, a week is a long time. There should, therefore, be little surprise over the rapid pace at which the broad contours of pre-poll alliances have changed since the announcement last Monday of the schedule for the 15th general elections. Each of the changes in alliance partnerships has thrown up fresh possibilities and has added to the question marks over who will form the next government at the Centre.
The Congress has come close to a seat-sharing arrangement with the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal. The Communist Party of India-Marxist, Congress' erstwhile partner in the United Progressive Alliance, will therefore be worried about its prospects in the 42 Lok Sabha seats that will be up for the grabs in a state that has been a bastion of the Left Front. Its somewhat eroded vote bank in West Bengal, as reflected partly in the results of recent panchayat polls and assembly by-elections, will face a consolidated opposition because of the Trinamool-Congress alliance. Triangular contests involving the Left, Congress and Trinamool have traditionally favoured Left candidates and allowed them to scrape through, as the anti-Left votes were split between the Congress and Trinamool.
With the Left Front's position in Kerala already shaky, and faced with the prospect of fewer seats in West Bengal as well, CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat is gambling on the formation of a broad Third Front that can stake a claim for power. He has already covered considerable ground, but has had one serious setback. He has weaned away Chandrababu Naidu's Telugu Desam in Andhra Pradesh, and seems about to score another bull’s eye if Naveen Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal in Orissa plumps for the Third Front after walking out of the National Democratic Alliance. A third party to leave the BJP-led NDA is the All-India Anna DMK (AIADMK), whose mercurial leader Jayalalithaa has underlined the uncertainties facing the different alliances by simultaneously holding out a hand to the Congress. The most unpredictable player is of course the Nationalist Congress Party in Maharashtra. The NCP’s Sharad Pawar has made no secret of his prime ministerial ambitions and has made overtures to the Shiv Sena (so far a BJP ally) while signaling his intention to become a member of the Third Front. In other words, the shrinkage of the Left’s presence in the next Lok Sabha may be more than neutralised by its becoming a part of a broader phalanx.
The BJP looks increasingly isolated, with allies in three major states having deserted it for the Third Front. It may be about to lose a fourth ally, the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra, because of the latter’s unexpected understanding with Sharad Pawar’s NCP. The BJP has taken a tough line and has asked Shiv Sena to make up its mind on who it wants to tie up with for the forthcoming polls. But the harsh truth is that the NDA is now a pale shadow of its former self, with the BJP’s only major allies now being Nitish Kumar in Bihar, the Akali Dal in Punjab, and Ajit Singh in western Uttar Pradesh. If the BJP is to have a shot at forming the next government, it will have to win more seats than the Congress, and thereby qualify to be called first by the President. That would give it the opportunity to wean away some of the parties that have plumped for the Third Front, a situation in which the party will almost certainly have to give up its Hindutva platform.
The Congress, meanwhile, has lost an important alliance partner in Uttar Pradesh—Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party. And it cannot count on the support of the NCP in Maharashtra. Its decision to flex its muscles during seat-sharing talks, and to go it alone where its terms are not accepted, may come back to haunt the party after the polls. Indeed, if it is asked by the President to form the next government, it may find that it has to deal with an assertive Third Front as an ally.