Two years ahead of the general elections, a group of eight regional parties recently launched a new national front as an alternative to the Congress and BJP. The announcement came after a meeting of regional parties hosted by TDP chief and former Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu. Whether it will be a viable national alternative to Congress and BJP as claimed by the new front remains unconvincing at present. There are many reasons to cite as to why such a third front as is being propped up at this juncture, may find it difficult to actually stay together for the whole course. A perusal glance of the parties involved in this experiment would suggest that they do not even come close to being ‘natural allies’ and can be at best described as jaded politicians out of power or simply opportunists readying themselves for the next power struggle.
The problem with coalitions in India seems to be the lack of a coherent and long term vision of such groupings. And the experience with real coalition politics has been one of short sightedness i.e. to keep either the ‘pseudo-secularist Congress or the ‘communal BJP’ out of power. Beyond this ‘peculiar’ commonality of interest, there is nothing that actually binds such groupings of disparate elements. So what can one expect of this latest attempt? Plenty of tantrums and high tea parties, which may keep national politics on the tenterhooks or worse still, a period of instability like the 13 days government under Atal Bihari Vajpayee and two years later again his government toppled by the mercurial Jayalalitha who withdrew support from the 13-month old government.
The latter is again eying a spot at the national centre stage and going by her political temperament, the third front that she and former kingmaker Chandrababu Naidu is going to lead may spell more trouble for the stability of national governance. No one can easily forget the anxious times Jayalalitha had given the Congress government that was in power at the Centre when she was the chief minister of Tamil Nadu in the early ‘90s and also the rough treatment that she had personally meted out to the Vajpayee coalition more recently. Going by this, the making of another third front is not good news because at best, they appear to be a vast medley of regional parties and break-off factions with no worthwhile national agenda but only to extract political concession. It is at best a marriage of convenience and quite uncalled for.
