FLASH | Sunday, March 15, 2009 | Email | Print |  | Back
Centre beckons
The Third Front will be a non-starter, BJP the front-runner with the Congress being a far second. GVL Narasimha Rao makes a prediction for Election 2009
As the nation is headed for elections to elect the 15th Lok Sabha, there is an emerging consensus among political pundits that national issues will not matter in the ensuing polls and that the local, regional issues and caste considerations will hold sway in the ensuing Lok Sabha polls.
As a result, they seem to believe that a motley combination of unattached regional parties (loosely called the Third Front) will come to power after the polls with or without the participation of either the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or the Congress. Thanks to this perception of a ramshackle coalition coming to power at the Centre after Lok Sabha polls, there is a sudden buzz of activity in the Third Front camp.
This perception has grown so strong that it has spawned an army of prime ministerial hopefuls ranging from Sharad Pawar of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) to Deve Gowda of the Janata Dal (Secular) and Lalu Prasad Yadav of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD); not to leave behind Naveen Patnaik of the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), who broke away from an 11-year-old partnership unilaterally with the BJP in Orissa recently.
Will the 15th Lok Sabha mandate be so fractured that all and sundry can join the race for prime ministership? After all, that is the sense that one gets looking at the brazen manner in which regional parties have bullied national parties like the BJP and the Congress in seat sharing negotiations over the past few weeks.
National issues galore
In my assessment, it is a huge myth that there are no national issues in this election and that the electorate will vote entirely on local issues and local preferences. The evidence from the ground is completely contrary.
This is one election in many decades in which national issues like economy — specifically price rise, unemployment and recession — and internal security (read terrorism) are high on people’s agenda all across the country. Quite significantly, even the rural and the less educated among the electorate believes that issues like price rise, employment and terrorism are largely within the ambit of the Central Government and are not in the domain of the State governments.
BJP better for handling economy, terrorism
Which party does the electorate think can handle better the twin voter concerns of management of economy and terrorism? Interestingly, in States where the BJP is a strong force, it is the preferred party for governance at the Centre, primarily because the Congress-led UPA Government is perceived to have failed in these areas. Ironically, in States where the BJP has no strong presence and the Congress has, the Congress is the favoured party.
In other words, the electorate seems to be favouring the big national parties at a time when national economy and security are the major concerns. Perhaps, the electorate reckons that a strong government at the Centre led by a major national party can handle this situation better than a weak government captained by regional parties.
BJP sweep in strongholds
Thanks to the electorate’s preference for the BJP in comparison to the ruling Congress at the Centre, in all its strongholds, the BJP is likely to sweep polls. In States where the BJP and the Congress are principal adversaries — as in the States of Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh and even Rajasthan and Delhi which the BJP lost recently in Assembly polls — and in States where the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is the principal adversary of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) (like Bihar, Maharastra etc), the BJP and the NDA are likely to sweep the polls.
Congress sweep in non-BJP territories
While the Congress is likely to lose heavily to the BJP in all the latter's strongholds, the Congress is likely to make major gains in States where it is pitted against the Left and regional parties (as in Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal etc). The Congress party is expected to do well in all these states by cannibalising the Third Front. As a result, the unattached regional parties are likely to get squeezed in this election rather than expand their base.
Third Front eclipse
The Third Front with parties such as the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Telangana Rastra Samiti (TRS), Janata Dal (Secular), All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), MDMK etc is a loose grouping of parties which cannot join either the Congress or the BJP for purely tactical reasons.
The Third Front can broadly be described as a rag tag coalition of parties that come together for the sake of gaining some publicity, disproportionate to their actual strength and use it as a parking place when there are no hot political deals happening. At the slightest opportunity, they strike private deals with the Congress and the BJP and not even offer themselves for a wholesale bargain rather than making retail, individual offers.
Look at the composition of the Third Front as it exists today compared to about a year ago. The Samajwadi Party (SP) left the Third Front to support the UPA Government at the Centre leaving the Left parties fuming. Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and Assam Gana Parishad (AGP) jumped onto the NDA bandwagon to fight Lok Sabha polls together with the BJP.
AIADMK keeps entering and quitting the Third Front at the will of its mercurial leader, Dr J Jayalalithaa. As regards Mayawati, one is not even sure whether Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is a part of the Third Front or not. Biju Janata Dal (BJD) has recently parted ways with the BJP to join the illustrious company of this coveted club, although the party makes protestations of its independent standing.
With the electorate seemingly in favour of the bipolar polity with the BJP and the Congress as the two poles, the new Third Front with a number of regional and bit players is getting squeezed from both sides and may just end up with the same tally of seats as the Left Front in the last Lok Sabha.
BJP is the front-runner
Although the Congress camp is exuding supreme confidence and the BJP leaders seem to be plagued by self-doubt about the party’s electoral prospects, the BJP is clearly the front-runner in the polls and is likely to emerge as the single largest party at the national level.
At the National Executive meeting of the BJP last month in Nagpur, of which I became a member recently, I told the party’s top leaders that it was besieged with over-confidence in the 2004 polls — when the party made tall claims of winning 300 seats on its own — while in 2009, when the party is doing pretty well, it is exhibiting signs of gloom and is bereft of buoyancy associated with a winner.
Two-party majority
Given the damages that the BJP is expected to inflict on the Congress in saffron strongholds, the BJP is likely to emerge as the single largest party, leaving the Congress quite far behind. But, between them, the parties, that is, the BJP and the Congress together will have a parliamentary majority. That will force the regional parties to gravitate towards one of the two alliances, the BJP-led NDA or the Congress-led UPA.
In my assessment, the BJP-led NDA is likely to lead the next Government as regional parties may prefer joining the NDA bandwagon in the post-poll scenario. For many allies, the BJP does not suit them in the pre-poll scenario given their local, electoral considerations. However, in a post- poll scenario, the BJP-led NDA may hold a lot of promise. After all, no one has the stature and credentials of LK Advani, the NDA’s prime ministerial candidate, or his determination to move to 7 Race Course Road.
-- The writer is a leading political analyst, psephologist and a member of the National Executive of the BJP. Views expressed here are his own
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