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EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE
Never-say-die architects of the Third Front will be looking at the expelled Congress leaders with a mixture of hope and consternation. There are many kinds of possibilities in the present scenario, an accretion of strength for the Third Front or further decay and disintegration and the emergence of a Fourth Front. Sharad Pawar, P A Sangma and Tariq Anwar are in the process of reinventing themselves as, in the words of one of them,``a new national alternative to the Congress and the BJP''.
The language suggests a new planetary system in the crowded political firmament with a (reformed? independent? nationalistic?) Congress at the core and regional and caste-based parties gravitating towards it. The expelled trio are working on the assumption that there will be enough Congress rebels all over the country to give their new party mass and weight. Pawar who made it plain long before the split that he sees no other possibility but a coalition at the Centre, has also been casting his net wider. He will have hiswork cut out for him putting together a coalition and keeping his base in the Maharashtra Congress intact. But that is little comfort for the Third Front or, for that matter, the two major national parties whose malcontents will be much sought after.
The Samajwadi Party tied up successfully with the parent Congress in Maharashtra in the last elections but can have no truck with the Congress in UP. So while Mulayam Singh Yadav would be a natural Pawar ally, others who have not or cannot join the BJP's alliance like the AIADMK, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Republican Party of India will be battled over by the expelled trio and the Congress. Even some like the Trinamool Congress which are part of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance are apparently being wooed. Former prime minister Chandra Shekhar is believed to be networking with old socialists. Finally, no doubt with an eye on parties like the Telugu Desam, Sharad Pawar has begun to use the rhetoric of regional pride.The split in the Congress ischurning things up in ways that do not seem advantageous to the revival of a Third Front led by the Left parties. In the calculation of the CPI(M), the Third Front was supposed to provide a solid platform for secularism.
But that vision took a severe beating with the alleged Mulayam Singh betrayal. Now there is a further setback with the Pawar-Sangma-Anwar revolt which has weakened the Congress, the only national party capable of challenging the BJP. If all Pawar's efforts come to no more than the emergence of a new regional party in Maharashtra, the chances of it supporting a Congress-led secular coalition are slim given the circumstances of the break-up. If some kind of ``new national alternative'' is put together it is likely to be at the expense, in part, of the existing Third Front, such as it is. Either way, the trio sounds like bad news for a Third Front of the CPI(M)'s dreams. As problematic is the platform of the new outfit. It will be seen and will have to define itself in some sense as``nationalistic''. Lest that push it too far towards the BJP end of the spectrum, it will be inclined to stress its secularism and P. A. Sangma, at least, will want to do so. What species of political animal will that be?
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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