Senior ministers of the UF government have long joked: United we fall, divided we stand. And, now that it has come true, they are not laughing any more. Indeed, in the face of mid-term elections, the Fronts new motto is: Each one for himself, God for all.
After a rare show of unity in the face of the Congress ultimatum , the UF constituents have begun preparations to hit the campaign trail but with little coordination among them. Publicly, coalition leaders say a united front would be put up, privately, there is little conviction on this among them.
For one, the UF was a post-election phenomenon, and will probably be revived post elections. More so, if the arithmetic favours yet another non-BJP coalition. For the moment, each constituent wants to safeguard its domain, knowing full well that there is little that other constituents can do in their respective areas.
Nobody needs anybody. For example, how can the TDP help in, say, Bihar? or, how can the AGP contribute to the prospects of the DMK?There is little prospect of the Front putting up a joint candidate anywhere. In fact, the chances are that the connotation of unity will cease once the UF MPs leave Delhi for their constituencies, a UF leader said.
As UF steering committee chairman H D Deve Gowda puts it, the constituents would go to the polls retaining their separate identity.
However, efforts would be made to synchronise their manifestos. Indications, however, are that there is little enthusiasm among the constituents on this. Most dont even want a common manifesto.
After the fall of the I K Gujral government, anti-Congressism has been revived in a big way, except for Mulayam Singh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party. Mulayam feels the Congress is not an untouchable, and does not want to stand in the way of the party taking on the BJP wherever it was strong. According to him, anti-Congressism has lost its relevance. The last experiment in sharing seats among the constituents was in UP during the recent assembly elections. It proved to be an unhappy one for Yadav. He was reported to be sore that the BJP had emerged as the single largest party because quite a few seats had been allotted to constituents who did not deserve them. There was also the spectacle of constituents contesting against each other. Yadav has made it clear that he will not brook any interference on seat distribution this time.
Apart from the SP, the constituent to watch is the Tamil Maanila Congress, particularly the fate of its alliance with the beleaguered DMK.
Given the uneasy relationship between the two in the post-Jain report scenario, a break would prove to be debilitating for the TMC. It may well be squeezed out in the contest between the DMK and the AIADMK.
However, indications are that all efforts would be made by the TMC to retain the alliance since it has little bargaining power.
A senior TMC leader said if DMK chief M Karunanidhi succeeds in turning the contest into one of Tamil pride versus northern chauvinism, it makes sense to remain with the DMK.
The only person who seems to have benefited from the UF experiment, and who is not afraid of facing the electorate is I K Gujral. He has won over the Akalis in Punjab, and is assured of a cakewalk victory from Jalandhar or Ludhiana, thanks to the Centre waiving the huge loan owed by the state, a senior minister said.
Since most of the regional parties in the coalition are ruling in states, the anti-establishment factor is bound to affect them, particularly in states like Assam and Andhra Pradesh. Front leaders feel that the Left parties would be able to broadly retain their strength, except for some setbacks in West Bengal and Kerala, where the Congress and the BJP hope to benefit from the anti-establishment vote.
However, not being part of the establishment may also affect UF constituents in some states. The SP is faced with the grim prospect of going to the polls with the BJP in power in Lucknow, while the Rashtriya Janata Dal government in Bihar is bad news for the Janata Dal, which stands to lose the most in the elections.
