Last week, a shabby sort of political development took place. A group of jobless, regional satraps gathered in Hyderabad to announce the possibilities of a new ‘third front.’ There were ex-chief ministers, defeated politicians, assorted political fixers and has-beens. They made a dismal sight. In a country aching for a new political idea is this all they can come up with? A tattered old formation that did not work last time and is unlikely to work in the future. It cannot work because it is held together not by a new political thought or some tentative new vision but only by the uncertain dream of ruling India in 2009.

It has happened before and the one achievement of the last Third Front government was it proved that if H.D. Deve Gowda could be prime minister of India anyone could.

The Third Front idea has been revived because a vacuum the size of a new national party has formed in the political sphere. Our two main political parties are in the dumps. Congress is reeling with the shock of electoral defeats in our northern states and the BJP, which got a strut back in its stride after successes in Punjab and Uttarakhand, has lost it since Mayawati took Uttar Pradesh. The Congress was not expecting much in Uttar Pradesh so it was disappointed but not defeated. For the BJP, the emergence of Mayawati as the undisputed leader of our largest state has come as a huge shock. Since polls predicted that they would do so well, it encouraged them to show their ugliest, hate-filled colours.

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