Pawar keeps alive post-poll tie-up options

VITAL FACTOR-III

There could be some dispute on the issue of characterising the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) as a marginal player. Is it, after all, not an ally in a ruling coalition in Maharashtra that sends as many as 48 seats to the Lok Sabha?

Did not it, in the 1999 Assembly election get as much as 22.6 per cent of the votes polled and 29.19 per cent of the votes in the seats it contested?

When it was formed in 1999 and contested the Assembly elections for the first time on the issue of Sonia Gandhi's foreign origins, it won 58 seats of the 223 it contested.

Now, unless the NCP can successfully survive the assaults visited on it by its ideological vacillation and its policy of running with the hare and hunting with the hound, it is in serious danger of becoming totally marginal to the politics of government-formation at the Centre.

The reasons are clear. NCP leader Sharad Pawar has burnt his boats by aligning with the Congress rather than the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) although this cost him an able lieutenant in the shape of PA Sangma.

This means, not only that he expects the Congress to offer him many more seats in the Lok Sabha out of their share (he is asking for 24. The BJP-Shiv Sena was offering him 8), but also proportionally more seats in the Assembly.

The NCP's main base has been in western Maharashtra. In the 1999 Assembly elections, its candidates forfeited their deposits in 53 seats.

It has virtually no presence in the Vidarbha and Konkan regions. However, there is evidence to believe that in the last municipal elections, not only did Muslims vote the NCP in these two regions, but that the tribals of the Gadchiroli and Chandrapur regions also chose the NCP.

Both these groups used to be Congress voters. This means the NCP has been gaining apparently at the cost of the Congress.

Unless the Congress can offer him seats in these regions (at some cost to itself), Pawar's party has little space for growth. For him to survive the electoral arithmetic game, the shape of the alliance and seat-sharing must be dictated by Pawar.

In the 1998 Lok Sabha elections, Maharashtra had no NCP. In that election the Congress won 33 seats and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) just 4.

This time, despite the alliance between the NCP and the Congress, the result is likely to be the opposite because of the anti-incumbency factor.

What is important is how Pawar can negotiate the Assembly-level adjustment with the Congress. With a handful of seats in the Lok Sabha and an alliance with a demanding Congress, the NCP, already battered by exits, could dwindle away.

Although Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was in Pandharpur in Maharashtra just last week and addressed a huge rally, there was no criticism or attack on Pawar or the NCP.

This means pre-poll alliances is one thing. But both the NDA and the NCP are keeping their options open for a post-poll tie-up, if the need arises.