The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Polls 2014
Will a third alternative work?
By KV Prasad

Power has mostly remained with the two national parties — the Congress and BJP — even as they headed a coalition government at the Centre. The ‘third front’ idea has been around for long. Now, the Left and regional parties are regrouping to give it a definite shape. Will it fire the voter’s imagination?

AIADMK leader Thambi Durai (left), JD (S) veteran leader HD Deve Gowda (3rd from left), senior CPI (M) leader Sitaram Yechury, JD (U) president Sharad Yadav, SP leader Ram Gopal Yadav and Gurudas Dasgupta from the CPI at a press conference after the ‘third front’ meeting at Parliament House in New Delhi on Wednesday. Tribune Photo: Mukesh Aggarwal

The country is getting ready to elect a new Lok Sabha. Even though a formal announcement of the schedule by the Election Commission is yet to be made, political parties have launched campaigns in the run-up to the declaration of the dates. The term of the 15th Lok Sabha ends on May 31 this year and the new House will have to be elected before that.

For the past two decades, the people have given a fractured mandate. Barring 1991-1996 when Congress under PV Narasimha Rao first ran a minority government that acquired majority in due course, the country has had a coalition regime at the Centre since 1996.

A major shift in the direction came after 1998 when the leadership of a coalition government rested either with the BJP or the Congress, a move suggesting that the country is moving towards a bipartisan arrangement. Contesting this idea, the Left along with a clutch of regional parties are coming together with the hope to capture the imagination of the people who are clearly not comfortable with either of these two national parties.

The give and take

AIADMK chief Jayalalithaa, keen on ‘third front’, with UP CM Akhilesh Yadav. PTI file photo

Tempered by experience and learning from reversals in electoral battles of the past, parties outside the Congress and BJP fold are working on a plan to project a "third alternative" at the national level, which is an arrangement without any formal agreement on seat sharing or electoral pacts. There could be some understanding in a few places.

Articulating the concept, CPM general secretary Prakash Karat says: "We will evolve a common platform and pool in our independent strengths. We feel that the Congress is losing ground and will not be able to fight the BJP. So there is a need for a non-Congress, non-BJP alternative."

The first in the series was a national-level convention in Delhi on October 30 which was attended by 14 parties, including the four Left parties, socialists and regional parties. Of these, the Communist Party of India, CPI (Marxist), All India Forward Bloc, Revolutionary Socialist Party, Asom Gana Parishad, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazghagam, Biju Janata Dal, Samajwadi Party, Janata Dal (United), Janata Dal (Secular) and Jharkhand Vikas Morcha have now formed a "bloc" in Parliament to coordinate a strategy in the resumed winter session that will end on February 21.

The Delhi convention was also attended by Manpreet Badal’s Peoples Party of Punjab, Prakash Ambedkar’s faction of the Republican Party of India, and the Nationalist Congress Party, which is with the Congress-led UPA.

Not a threat

The Left parties are the catalyst in forming an alternative, but unlike the previous experiment, all those who are in talks are wary of labelling it as the "third front". Taking a leaf from the 2009 results, when the four Left parties, along with the Telugu Desam Party, BJD and JD (S), could not get the requisite strength, the tactics have been changed this time.

"Each party is strong in their respective states — the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu, JD (U) in Bihar, BJD in Orissa, JD (S) in Karnataka and TDP in Andhra Pradesh. The Left parties are the common link between these parties and are in conversation with one another," says Karat.

The inherit contradiction of contesting against each other is not a concern since these parties do not have the potential to damage the interest of the others in states where the regional party is strong. For instance, even through the Left may contest a few seats in Uttar Pradesh, it lacks the potential to upset the SP.

Barring Tamil Nadu, where the AIADMK has renewed it electoral pact with the CPI and CPM, there is no formal agreement in place in any other state. In Bihar, the Left parties are in discussions with the JD (U) for seat sharing but that is as far as it goes.

Trust issues

Ironically, while Mulayam Singh Yadav is also pushing for a national alternative, the SP is not willing to concede any seat in the Lok Sabha to its allies. It does not end here. The trust that the Left parties place in Mulayam Yadav cannot be explained when judged against the actions of the SP chief who emerged as the chief wrecker on previous occasions.

The SP chief walked out of the People's Front in 2002 on the question of fielding Captain Lakshmi Sehgal as a joint candidate in the presidential polls against Dr APJ Abdul Kalam whom Mulayam favoured. In 2008, during the vote on the nuclear deal with the US and later on the FDI in retail in Parliament, the SP kept company with the Left, only to switch sides when it mattered.

Today, the SP needs the Left parties more as the image of his party has suffered a major dent following the Muzzaffarnagar riots. The minorities are feeling insecure in a regime that they were comfortable with at one time.

Question mark on how the JD (S) would act is also being raised amid reports that Deve Gowda's son is in touch with the BJP as well as Congress. The JD (S) has done business in Karnataka with the BJP in the past and has dealt with the Congress too. Yet, the former Prime Minister Deve Gowda reacts testily to the question, brushing aside the point that only the JD (S) knows the suffering experienced in dealing with both these parties.

Similarly, there is no guarantee that the AIADMK will carry its alliance partners in the post-poll scenario. In the past too, agreements ended with the elections. Incidentally, Narendra Modi, the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, has opened a line of communication with AIADMK supremo Jayalalithaa, signalling a post-poll altering of equations.

Action replay

The question of a formal front with identified constituents will emerge only after the results — as would be the candidate for the post of Prime Minister — should such a situation arise. The scenario will then be a replay of the one that emerged during the 1996 elections when the Janata Dal, with the support of the AGP, TDP, erstwhile Tiwari Congress and the Left parties, formed the United Front. The Congress provided support from outside to keep the BJP away.

Veteran Communist leader and octogenarian AB Bardhan is emphatic that any front will emerge only after the elections. The strategy is that each party will seek to maximise its presence in the 16th Lok Sabha and then regroup on the ideology of being non-Congress and non-BJP.

The formula resembles the strategy outlined by then CPM general secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet in January 2004 to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who in a bid to sew up the coalition, reached out to the Left. While declining any understanding with the Congress, he had suggested that the Congress and Left should concentrate on winning seats in order to check the BJP and leave the rest to the situation after the results. In the end, the Left supported the Congress-led UPA from outside.

Leaders working for a national alternative believe that political space is available for policies and programmes other than those pursued by the Congress and BJP, especially the economic content. These parties are also wary of the communal element being introduced in these elections and offer themselves as bulwarks against its growth. It could work in parts, but as a whole, it does not appear appetising.

Redrawing alignments for power at the Centre

Indian politics has seen many coalitions emerge at the Centre and multiple alliances being forged with parties, who start out as ‘partners of convenience’ and later turn into foes owing to political compulsions.

1977-1979

For the first time in the history of Independent India, a non-Congress government came to power. Not a coalition in its strictest interpretation, the Janata Party that formed the government under Morarji Desai was an amalgam of parties with different ideologies. The Janata Party had Congress members like Desai and Jagjivan Ram, who floated the Congress for Democracy after having broken ranks with the Congress under Indira Gandhi and the Bharatiya Jana Sangh. Under the guidance of Jayaprakash Narayan, socialist leaders like Raj Narain and Jat leaders like Charan Singh, Devi Lal and Madhu Dandavate joined hands to forge an alliance under the Janata Party umbrella. Ideological division with the Jana Sangh on the question of dual membership led to its dismemberment and the BJP came into existence in 1980.

1989-1991

The National Front coalition led by Congress leader Vishwanath Pratap Singh, who rebelled against the party under Rajiv Gandhi on the issue of corruption, assumed power at the Centre in December 1989. VP Singh floated the Janata Dal, taking along socialists like Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Sharad Yadav and Jat leader Devi Lal, with outside support from the likes of NT Rama Rao of the Telugu Desam Party, who was the convener of the steering committee.

The front received outside support both from the right-of-centre BJP and the Left parties. The coalition buckled under the weight of Mandal-masjid politics with the BJP withdrawing support after LK Advani was taken into custody and prevented from taking out ‘rath yatra’.

Subsequently, Chandrashekar, who led the Janata Party with a handful of MPs, formed the government with the Congress under Rajiv Gandhi extending support from outside. The experiment lasted a few months as Rajiv pulled the plug, complaining that he was under the surveillance of two policemen.

May 1996

With the May 1996 elections resulting in a fractured mandate, the BJP under Atal Bihari Vajpayee emerged as the single-largest party. President Shankar Dayal Sharma invited him to form the government and prove majority in Parliament. The SAD rushed in with a letter of support, but that was the end of the road as the ‘untouchable’ factor came in. Vajpayee was forced to resign after failing to secure any support. The Congress by then had announced it would back the United Front led by the Janata Dal with HD Deve Gowda as its leader.

1996-1998

The TDP, AGP, CPI and Tewari Congress joined the government while the CPM opted out. Hardline CPM politburo members vetoed the offer that then West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu lead the government — a decision the veteran Marxist characterised as a “historic blunder”.

After the United Front tried in vain to convince VP Singh to be the Prime Minister, Deve Gowda — who was then Chief Minister of Karnataka — was then given the responsibility. During his 11 months in office, Gowda’s relations with then Congress president Sitaram Kesri deteriorated beyond repair. Gowda acted more like a provincial leader and the Congress withdrew support.

Backroom confabulations and political manoeuvres crafted by CPM general secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet and TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu’s spadework salvaged the situation. The Janata Dal agreed to bring in Inder Kumar Gujral as the Prime Minister. Fresh oxygen was breathed into the ailing coalition, but the morass had set in. It was a matter of time that the ties between the Congress and the Janata Dal-led United Front government worsened. The presence of three ministers of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam was cited as the reason. The Congress wanted them to be dropped since the DMK had allegedly provided tacit support to the LTTE, whose leader Prabhakaran was behind Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination in 1991.

1998-1999

Once again the results threw a hung Parliament, with the BJP and its allies leading the tally. Stung by the 1996 stigma when no political party was willing to be seen in its company, the BJP under Vajpayee and LK Advani utilised the period to weave an alliance that included the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Khazagam (AIADMK) and came to power. The coalition was rocked in the spring of 1999 when Jayalalithaa snapped ties and hobnobbed with the Congress. Despite finding a new ally in the DMK, the Vajpayee government lost the confidence motion by a single vote. It was asked to continue as a caretaker regime and then the Kargil conflict and the battle to clear the heights took place.

1999-2004

The BJP added more allies in the run-up to the elections and the alliance was voted to power with a clear majority. The number of partners with many MPs to a single MP soared to over 20, with some partners leaving and rejoining the coalition dictated by compulsions of region and state politics.

2004-2009 and 2009-2014

Having spent eight years out of power, the Congress under Sonia Gandhi re-drafted its strategy to form an alliance with the RJD, LJP, NCP and the DMK, to name a few, and emerged as the single-largest group of parties in the 14th Lok Sabha. The Left overcame its ideological compulsions and agreed to support the Congress-led UPA from outside to checkmate the BJP. The arrangement continued till 2008 when the Left withdrew support following differences over the nuclear deal with the US. The SP with a sizeable number of MPs — which till then was kept at a distance by the Congress — filled the breach. The 15th Lok Sabha saw the Congress and its allies secure a clear majority.