Lalit Sethi
The National Democratic Alliance is entitled to believe that it is on the march on the Indian horizon, but it will have to disprove the adversaries’ assertion that the NDA is a sinking ship. Unfortunately, the 85-year-old Lal Krishna Advani, who has not yet jumped off the “sinking ship”, sees a dismal future for the BJP as well as NDA, not just because Mr. Nitish Kumar has “divorced” the BJP and sacked its Ministers from the Bihar Government, but the advent of the Narendra Modi era is unacceptable to him and many others in the party.
The BJP has recently lost the States of Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand because of in-fighting in the party. Delhi will be electing a new Assembly this year and BJP is a house divided, not that the Congress in the National Capital Region is far from solid and is facing the incumbency factor. Madhya Pradesh and Chhatisgarh are two more States readying for elections where Modi’s skills may be tested.
Will Mr. Narendra Modi and Mr. Rajnath Singh be able to save this rocking boat with their brand of a development agenda, couched in the dream of a unique Bharat Mata being revived, revitalized and reconciled in the face of dissidence over his brand of strong and ruthless leadership? Right now, one of the key components and one-time solid friend has bid goodbye. The JDU has set itself up as an unaligned entity; it has decided to take a go it alone path in Bihar. One of the reasons is that the Maharajgunj by-election in Bihar saw the defeat of the JDU candidate by the RJD of Lalu Prasad Yadav because the BJP cadres were suspected to have worked against the ruling party.
Mr. Nitish Kumar’s own party president, Mr. Sharad Yadav, has resigned as convener of the NDA and withdrawn his Janata Dal United from the Opposition outfit. They have not joined the United Progressive Alliance. Mr. Nitish Kumar has wafer thin majority support in the Bihar Assembly in a House of 243. His own party has 119 MLAs and a willing Congress with four members supporting it plus some Independents. Against him are ranged the BJP with 91 members, Mr. Lalu Yadav with 22 members and Ram Vilas Paswan’s party has one member. An uncomfortable Governor was transferred from Patna a few months ago. That made life easy for the Chief Minister.
At this point of time, the NDA’s has been reduced by 20 seats held by the JDU in the Lok Sabha to 134 members and thus hardly a force to reckon with in challenging the UPA even if the RSS bosses of Nagpur and Mr. Narendra Modi would wish to throw the Government out of office and go to the polls with some kind of a bravado, but that bravado has even fewer chances of working. Even the present dispensation in the BJP and its allies like Shiv Sena and Akali Dal might not be much interested in a censure proposal.
Mr. Nitish Kumar is not the first to leave the NDA. Some years ago, Mr. Naveen Patnaik had broken his alliance with the BJP at the time of elections to the Odisha Assembly and decided to go it alone and his party, the Biju Janata Dal or BJD, had been chosen with a handsome mandate. He had been shocked by the killing of an Australian priest by a rightist outfit. Just now he has described Mr. Narendra Modi as a “polarizing factor” on the national scene.
Mr. Patnaik has been approached by Ms. Mamta Bannerji to join hands with her in floating a Third Front in the elections to the Lok Sabha. She has also asked Mr. Nitish Kumar to build up this Front as a sort of alliance of three eastern States. The Jharkhand leader, Mr. Madhu Koda, has endorsed the proposal to make it four States. Ms. Mayawati would be equally interested in leading a Front, as would Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav, who has been waiting in the wings for the high office for a very long time.
Ms. Jayalalitha, still ready to support Narendra Modi, might wish to play the game as there is little or no presence of the BJP in Tamil Nadu, but Mr. Chandrababu Naidu might be interested in the Third Front move, but he has to win some seats in Andhra before he could have any say in the matter. Mr. Sharad Pawar might be interested in a Front, but only on his terms, which are that he must be the next Prime Minister, but are there any takers for it? In fact, every leader of the small or not so small party is a pretender to the throne, thereby making a combination unpractical.
As the leftists have poured cold water on any Front of which Ms. Bannerjee and her Trinamool Congress are a part to make the Third Front look like just one of those ideas away from ground realities. Ms. Bannerjee having ditched both the BJP or NDA and the Congress in the past, she is unlikely to be considered worthy of support from right, left or centrists at this point of time. However, Mr. Naveen Patnaik has followed the example of Mr. Nitish Kumar in holding a rally at Delhi’s Ramlila Ground to demand special status for a backward State like Odisha.
The history of anti-Congress United Front from 1977 has been a sad one. Mr. Morarji Desai came to power at the end of the National Emergency, but Chaudhari Charan Singh broke it after 27 months on the ground that Jana Sangh component of the Janata Party could not have dual allegiance to the RSS. The Jat leader came to power with Congress giving outside support, but he was out within six months without facing Parliament.
How the BJP pulled the rug from Mr. V.P.Singh over the Mandal issue in 11 months in 1990 is the story of Janata Dal. Between 1996 and 1998, a United Front survived for 22 months with two Prime Ministers-Deve Gowda and I.K.Gujral-with outside Congress support. Then the BJP led NDA ruled for six years from 1998 to the summer of 2004. (IFS)
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