Third Front prospects

Ashok B Sharma
Delhi seems to show the way for the emergence of a third force in the country. The one-year old, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which has emerged as a force to reckon with, wrested power in the city-state. AAP has secured 28 seats reducing the ruling Congress to 8 and halting BJP’s march at 32 in the 70-member State Assembly.
This resulted in a hung assembly. But the only option left for the shattered Congress party was to lend outside support to AAP to form the government and implement its 18-point “pro-people” programme. The Congress has understood the need to support AAP as by not doing so it may invite its own disaster. The BJP has, however, opted to sit in the Opposition.
The two major national parties – the Congress and the BJP – are viewing AAP, a party born out the Gandhian Anna Hazare’s anti-graft movement, with all seriousness. With Congress lending outside support to AAP, the BJP has started calling it as B-team of the former. But the Congress is trying to play safe by terming its support as “unconditional”
AAP wrested many seats held by the former Congress ministers. The most significant was the defeat of the Congress Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit by a margin of 25,864 votes in the New Delhi constituency by the party supremo Arvind Kejriwal. The party dispelled the notion that its support was from middle-class anger against policies of Congress that caused rising prices and increased joblessness. AAP has proved that it represented the poor by winning nine out of 12 reserved seats in Delhi. It has also demonstrated its support base among the Muslims.
Emergence of AAP can signal regional parties to come together to form a third alternative. Strong anti-incumbency playing against the Congress and BJP being viewed as a communal force, space remains for non-Congress and non-BJP forces to come together for a third alternative.
However attempts have failed in the recent past to form a viable third alternative. But this spirit may be rejuvenated after the emergence of AAP as a force in Delhi. The Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party did not give any solid commitment towards formation of an alternative non-Congress non-BJP front in the October conclave in Delhi.
Buoyant after recent victory in urban polls, the BJD supremo and Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik is now toying with the idea of forming an alternative to both the Congress and the BJP. Recent meeting of the YSR Congress chief YS Jaganmohan Reddy with Naveen fuelled latter’s ambition of keeping “equidistance” from both the BJP and the Congress.
Jagan sought the support of the Odisha Chief Minister against the proposed bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh and Naveen, faced with the demand for a separate statehood for Kosal region, was quick to extend his support. Jagan-Naveen meeting is the starting point of conceptualizing the new vision of an alternative non-Congress non-BJP front for the upcoming 2014 polls. Further Jagan got support from the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Mamata, also faced with the demand for trifurcation of her state for carving out Gorkhaland and Kamtapur, was happy to find a friend in Jagan.
After Jagan met her Mamata revived her concept of a Federal Front, the name she proposed earlier. “We are not for a Third Front, we are not for Secular Front. We are for a United India Front,” she said.
Whatever may be the likely outcome in the future, Jagan seems to have laid the foundation of an alternative non-Congress non-BJP front by roping in both Mamata and Naveen. Incidentally Jagan’s vision of united Andhra Pradesh has found supports from Mamata and Naveen who are also interested in not allowing their division of their state. Jagan has appealed to both the chief ministers that an amendment should be brought in for Article 3 of the Constitution, wherein the State Assembly must unanimously pass a resolution, or, at least, two-thirds majority in the State Assembly and Parliament should be made a must for bifurcation of a state. If Article 3 is not amended, the repercussion would be so severe that anybody in power in Delhi could sit down there and their whim and fancies could split any state. Democracy would be killed in broad day light.
Despite reports of scams and scandals and mismanagement in the administration,the legacy of his father, Biju Patnaik has helped him to continue as chief minister of the state for three successive terms. Even after severing ties with the BJP in 2009, Naveen’s party BJD could bounce back to power on its own strength.
The results of the rural local bodies and urban local bodies have confirmed Naveen’s popularity in the state in the face of a weak Congress opposition and battered BJP. The ruling BJD has reaffirmed its hegemony and scored a resounding victory in the recent second phase of urban local body (ULB) polls in western Odisha by winning a clear majority in 15 of 20 municipalities and notified area councils (NACs).
The results of the recent polls to the urban local bodies (ULBs) have once again confirmed that his mantra of “keeping equidistance from the BJP and the Congress” has worked well. He now harbours the ambition of playing a deciding role in national politics which can be possible if he aligns with an alternative credible non-Congress non-BJP front. (IPA)

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