Third front, a no front and a third grade front for the country

Watching the recent developments in national politics, people are reminded of the United Front Governments and they are haunted by the question if the country is destined towards a hung parliament. Yesterday, nine parties including CPI, CPM, BSP, JD(S), TDP, and TRS came together in Tumkur to form a front called third front as an alternative to BJP and Congress. The Driving force behind the front formation is none other than Mr. Gowda who is known for his unpredictability. He claims that the so called third front can offer a stable Government for the nation. How far we can believe in his statement? As I daily do in my office at Citi Bank, tracking the past and predicting the future with some assumptions and considerations, let me see what history says about such fronts and what kind of front we can expect pre and post polls.

Between, 1996 and 1999, India has seen four Governments collapsing in three years time. That’s the time when regional parties gathered more seats pushing the two major national parties, the Congress and the BJP into the back seats. With a great surprise to himself and to everyone, on behalf of United Front, Mr. Gowda took over as PM and his government collapsed within 10 months by the time he and India woke up from a deep sleep. Later Gujral took over as PM and his government lasted for around 11 months after which Vajpayee led a 13 day and a 13 months BJP coalition governments in succession. Never in the history, we have seen such a high political instability in the country. With frequent in fighting, regional aspirations as priority, with no common agenda and with number of power centers, United Front governments could set no direction to the country. India lost a crucial time at a crucial juncture. Most analysts say that it’s during this period, India went way behind China in terms of taking important steps for a stronger nation.

Some time back in last year, Mr Karat, the lead comrade brought some of these regional parties under the banner the name of UNPA which collapsed in no time. And today once again the political atmosphere looks conducive to a hung lok sabha or we can put it in a different form saying that the regional parties pose a great challenge to national parties. Among the nine front parties that launched a grand convention at Tumkur in Karnataka, top leaders of more than half of the front partners were missing at the launch ceremony. BSP, AIADMK, TRS, RSP and the Forward Bloc sent their representatives to the ceremony instead of their top leaders. The party in demand, BJD which moved away from NDA was also missing at the ceremony. And fresh news says that Maya puts a condition of announcing her as third front PM candidate for BSP to join the front. All this convince you and me about Gowda’s claim that third front would offer a stable alternative? What credibility he possess to say so? How can Mr.Gowda, who was not able to offer a stable government in a state like Karnataka with a single coalition partner offer us a stable government at center?

TRS, one of constituents of the third front was once upon a time a part of congress led UPA. As a party that is leading the movement for separate Telangana, having made an unsuccessful experimentation with congress in the past, TRS in all probability is prepared for a post poll tie up with BJP which promised Telangana formation in 100 days after coming to power. AIADMK leader Jaya Lalitha, once upon a time NDA ally and who also shares a cordial relation with BJP leaders like Modi and Advani is also open for post poll alliance with NDA. BJD Naveen is open for choices. Communist parties whose only ideology is to blindly oppose BJP, in all probability are expected to say that they have no option but to support UPA in case NDA gets ready to form Government. So third front which exists today is most likely to be a no front post elections and even if it exists which in no case looks possible for me, it would be a third grade front which would only be detrimental to the progress of the Nation. Let’s analyze the reasons why such fronts would be so volatile in nature. Do we see a possibility in this world for any two parties or for that matter any two indivusals or any two organizations working together for a long time without a common ideology or at least a common agenda or a common minimum program? What else do we expect, except the instability and poor governance when parties without a common agenda come together for power? They would focus more over power sharing than offering good governance. Therefore, regional parties without a strong national party leading the Government or regional parties with the only character of regional aspirations and no national interests leading the government prove to be unsuccessful in offering stable and good governance to the billion people who share a vision of achieving a strong India for a stronger world.

Jai Hind