The Pair-Off Season Is On

Of the three groupings, it is the Congress alone which (at least on paper) has anorganisational presence at the all-India level. But even this party knows it cannot affordto go it alone, particularly in the southern state of Tamil Nadu which has 39 Lok Sabhaseats. Since the 1967 general elections, with the sole exception of 1989, the Congress hasnever had the courage to refuse being propped up by one of the two Dravidianparties—the DMK and the AIADMK—as its partner. The 1989 experience had beendisastrous for the party, with the DMK making it almost a complete sweep of the seats atstake. On the other hand, in the last general elections in 1991, the Congress and theAIADMK which had fought the polls together had won handsomely in 38 seats.

Sadly for the ruling party at the Centre, the Congress and the AIADMK fell out amidmuch acrimony last year, a development which Prime Minister Narasimha Rao did not seem tooruffled by at the time. But now with E-Day approaching, the Congress managers areunderstandably less cavalier and are desperately trying to revive the alliance. ThatAIADMK chief J. Jayalalitha too is keeping her options open was evident from the chiefminister’s statement at the recent Tiruchirapalli conference that "there are nopermanent enemies" in politics.

The decision to renegotiate with Jayalalitha could also boomerang, as the dominant G.K.Moop-anar faction of the Congress in Tamil Nadu is dead-set against the move. The factionleaders—particularly CLP leader S.R. Balasubramaniam and PCC chief KumariAnanthan—are working on an alternative seat-sharing plan with various MGR FansAssociations and is hoping that Rajnikant will finally shed his reticence and give theCongress the much-needed shot in the arm.

As for the NF-LF alliance in Tamil Nadu, it is in a state of total disarray. Last yearthe Janata Dal led the National Front on a suicidal course by suggesting that it shouldhave an alliance with both the AIADMK and the DMK. Its leaders mistakenly thought thatthey would be able to sweep all 39 seats with two such powerful allies. The result wasdisastrous. Jayalalitha remained totally non-committal and a fuming M. Karunanidhi tookhis DMK right out of the National Front. To make matters worse for the NF-LF combine, thetwo Left parties in the state have also gone separate ways as far as choosing their alliesis con-cerned. While the CPI remains with the DMK, the CPI(M) has chosen to join forceswith Karunanidhi’s other bete noire, the MDMK led by his former confidant V.Gopalasamy.

Now, former prime minister V.P. Singh is understood to have got quietly into the act,sending feelers to Karunanidhi to return to the National Front in the larger interests ofthe third front against the Congress and the BJP. But as Janata Dal leader Ram BilasPaswan says: "Our problems will remain even after Karunanidhijicomes back. We willsomehow have to convince him and Gopalasamy to bury the hatchet and come togetheragain." That, of course, is easier said than done. Moreover, some Janata Dal leadersare getting disconcerting pangs of deja vu, reminded as they are of the abortive operationto unite Karunanidhi and Jayalalitha. In case the Janata Dal’s efforts to rope inKarunanidhi fail, there are good chances that the party may finalise a deal withGopalasamy.

It’s not in Tamil Nadu alone where theNF-LF combine is in a mess. In theneigh-bouring state of Andhra Pradesh, when the Telugu Desam split last year between theN.T. Rama Rao and Chandrababu Naidu factions, the Janata Dal was caught in a similar jam.NTR was the chairman of the National Front and could not be ditched on moral grounds. Butboth the CPI and the CPI(M) had chosen to go along with the Naidu faction, which commandeda greater strength in the state assembly.

Now after NTR’s demise, the temptationfor the Janata Dal to go along with theLakshmi Parvathi faction has become all the greater, as the party feels NTR’s widowcould whip up a sympathy wave. Paswan not only attended last week’s simhagarjana rallycalled by Lakshmi Parvathi, but declared his party’s full support to her in her fightagainst the "evil forces". In her present state of mind, there is only one evilforce as far as Parvathi is concerned. And that is Naidu. It remains to be seen whetherthe Janata Dal will pursue its efforts to reunite the two Telugu Desam factions, orwhether it will back Parvathi at the risk of alienating the Left.

The only place where the NF-LF combine seems to be well placed in terms of regionalsupport is Assam. The National Front’s erstwhile constituent, the Asom Gana Parishad,is poised to return to the fold. There had been moments of doubt last year when theAGPappeared to be veering towards the BJP, but party chief Prafulla Kumar Mahantaindicated during his recent New Delhi visit that he was engaged in a serious dialogue withthe Janata Dal in revitalising the NF-LF.

Two states where the combine has next to no problems are Bihar and West Bengal. InBihar, the Dal under Laloo Prasad Yadav is too dominant for the two Left parties to demandmany seats. And in West Bengal, the Left parties should have little difficulty in givingthe Dal the two seats it desires.

Uttar Pradesh continues to be tricky, though. It is largely thanks to the combinedpressure of the CPI and the CPI(M) that the fog has lifted som what. Now the Dal hascategorically said that the primary talks for adjustments would revolve around MulayamSingh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party and though Laloo continues to talk about the idealscenario of including both Mulayam and the Bahujan Samaj Party’s Kanshi Ram in theNational Front, few believe this will actually come about. A lot of hard negotiation liesahead for the Janata Dal and the Samajwadi Party. And the emerging relationship could yetflounder on the issue of seat-sharing, with Mulayam unwilling to concede more than ahandful of seats.

AS for the BSP, the only two states where it is likely to have signifi-cant allies isPunjab and Madhya Pradesh. In Punjab, the second-rung Akali leaders have shot down PrakashSingh Badal’s suggestion for an electoral understanding with the BJP, and Badal isnow said to be discussing seat-sharing with Kanshi Ram. Only three of the 13 Lok Sabhaseats in the state are reserved for Scheduled Castes, but members of the community have asizeable presence in Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur and Faridkot. The basic stumbling block for thealliance is the BSP’s insistence that it be given at least four Lok Sabha seats bythe Akalis. The BSP may also have some sort of a tie-up with the Congress(T) in areas inMadhya Pradesh, though the dialogue between the two groups is said to be at a verypreliminary stage.

As for the BJP, the main challenger to the Congress, it too is beginning to realisethat it cannot face the elections all by itself and that it needs allies, and notnecessarily "like-minded". There are signs of strain between the BJP and theShiv Sena in Maharashtra, with the latter asking for 25 of the 48 Lok Sabha seats in thestate. But BJP leaders in New Delhi feel the Sena won’t stick to such an"unreasonable demand" and will honour the old agreement of the BJP getting thelion’s share of Lok Sabha seats and the Sena contesting the bulk of the assemblyseats. Sena leaders—particularly Bal Thackeray and nephew Raj Thackeray—haveindicated that they would insist on some seats outside Maharashtra too, and the BJP maycede this as a token gesture to ensure the alliance’s survival.

The BJP’s efforts to forge an alliance with the Samsata Party in Bihar have alsonot made the kind of headway the party had initially expected. The catch is that SamataParty leaders George Fernandes and Nitish Kumar don’t want the relationship to beconfined to Bihar. Fernandes, in particular, realises that Bihar Chief Minister LalooPrasad Yadav will leave no stone unturned to get him defeated in the Lok Sabha electionand wants to shift to his home state Karnataka or to Maharashtra. Unfortunately, theSamata Party has virtually no presence in Karnataka and BJP leaders see no reason why theyshould risk offering any seats to the Samata Party in the state.

Fernandes cannot even think of saving the situation for himself by a tie-up with S.Bangarappa. The latter’s Karnataka Congress Party seems all set to have a limitedtie-up with the Janata Dal, at least for the Shimoga seat, which is considered the formerchief minister’s pocketborough. But BJP sources in Delhi predict that the alliancewith the Samata Party in Bihar will finally come through and that the latter may be givenup to 14 of the 54 Lok Sabha seats in the state.

Of course, these budding alliances are in a highly fluid state. In many cases, thecentral leaders’ preoccupation with the hawala fallout left them little time toconcentrate on regional tie-ups. The coming weeks are bound to see heightened activity onthis front. New deals will be struck. New relationships formed. And this will be one timeof the year when ideologies won’t matter. Almost everyone, whether it be theCongress, the BJP or the NF-LF combine, will be striking opportunistic alliances to tidethe electoral challenge that stares them in the face. The irony is that most observers areconvinced that the alliances could all come apart after the polls in the event of a hungParliament. Then, the only real motivation will be power sharing.