Everyone knows that a Common Minimum Programme (CMP) is critical for any alliance, which is why a lot of thought goes into drafting it. One CMP’s fine, but two? Congress Party spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi had most journalists confounded when he said the so-called Third Front would be well advised to draft not one, but two CMPs, before making tall claims about being able to form a government after the elections.
The first CMP, he explained, was the one everyone understood it to be. The other, he said, referring to the claims to prime ministership being made by Third Front partners like Mayawati and Jayalalithaa, among others, was a ‘Common Minimum Prime Minister’!