THE BJP government survived the vote of confidence last week after being bailed out by the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the National Conference (NC). Assisted also by the fact that the Opposition had already given up the ghost, with the election of the TDP's G.M.C. Balayogi as Lok Sabha Speaker three days earlier. Giving credit where it was due, home minister L.K. Advani observed: "All this has been made possible by the United Front."
Neither the Congress nor the UF had made a serious effort to work out a strategy to topple the government, since they had no alternative formation in mind. Earlier, in order to avoid embarrassment to the UF and allow the NC some time to rethink the precise modality of its support to the BJP, the Speaker's election was effected through a voice vote. The BJP's March 23 coup—fielding Balayogi rather than adopting P.A. Sangma as a consensus candidate—gave it a clear psychological advantage. "We had no problem with Sangma. But if we had agreed to him, the message would have gone out that we did not enjoy a majority. They (the Opposition) wanted to see our government humiliated," explained Advani.
For the UF, all that remains is the bitter realisation that its failure to stand together has aided the BJP and put a question mark on its own existence. It ran helter-skelter to back the Congress (sacrificing the TDP in the process), only to find its offer of support spurned by Sonia Gandhi. Feelings against the new Congress chief are running high in the UF. "The Congress is responsible for the installation of the BJP government," said the Samajwadi Party's Amar Singh. The combined Opposition—the Congress and the United Front—united briefly immediately after the election results, now look set to go their separate ways, at least until the next election. Samata Party leader George Fernandes' merciless exposure of the contradictions between the Congress and the UF, by the simple expedient of underlining the mutual acrimony, spelt out in their respective manifestos, hit close to the bone. The postelection polarisation of BJP-led and Congress-led forces is likely to prove a temporary phenomenon. At the same time, a consolidation of non-Congress, non-BJP parties is very much on the cards.
The defection of the TDP and the NC has led to soul-searching in the UF, with some leaders taking the view that virulent anti-BJPism has proved counter-productive, serving only to strengthen the party. JD MP Ram Vilas Paswan has been advocating a redefinition of secularism. "When we talk of secularism, people think it means being pro-Muslim. As a result, Hindu votes, cutting across caste lines, get polarised in favour of the BJP," he notes.
A senior CPI leader agrees that this is true of Uttar Pradesh, where the BJP managed to increase its tally to 59. Says the Bharatiya Kamgar Kisan Party's Ajit Singh: "We must have a more positive definition of secularism, not just anti-BJPism. It means being against sectarianism, whether on the basis of caste or community. By promoting casteism in the name of secularism, you help the BJP."
AMAR Singh, for one, counters the argument: "If that were true, we (the SP) would not have increased our voteshare, especially among the Thakurs, in UP." Targeting both the BJP and the Congress, he claims that the third force would occupy the secular space in Indian politics on its own: "We shall fight communal forces on our own and strengthen ourselves so that secular bodies will be consolidated under our national leadership. " Significantly, he questions the secular credentials of the Congress: "We have not forgotten Babri Masjid. Nor have we forgotten Operation Bluestar." Denying that the SP is pro-Congress despite its pre-electoral alliance with the party, he points out: "Don't forget that we opposed the Congress in UP."
A growing fear amongst the UF partners is that the Congress will aggressively target their votebank and wants nothing more than the disappearance of the third front—the one agenda it has in common with the BJP. Hence the need to regroup. Sources within the SP and the Rashtriya Janata Dal say the two Yadavs—Mulayam Singh and Laloo Prasad—are bound to make common cause although talks are at an early stage. For the moment, however, the UF is in disarray, reduced to little more than 83 MPs and four formations—the Left Front, the SP, the JD and the TMC-DMK combine. The TDP, AGP, BKKP and NC have virtually quit the UF while the MGP has been wiped out.
It took a lot of persuasion for NC leader Farooq Abdullah to attend the UF's core group meeting last week, where he was given a dressing down by Mulayam and Left leaders Harkishen Singh Surjeet and A.B. Bardhan. Abdullah apologised for deciding to abstain during the trust vote, but said he needed Central assistance to fight insurgency in the Valley. "We can't be seen to be pally-pally with the government at the Centre, but we need its cooperation," said his son, MP Umer Farooq.
Farooq dismisses the possibility of the Hurriyat Conference making capital out of the NC's pro-Centre (rather than anti-Congress) alignment. The three main stumbling-blocks in the way of a BJP-NC entente were the ruling party's stand on Article 370, the Babri Masjid and the uniform civil code.
The former, said Farooq, isn't really a problem because constitutionally it cannot be touched without the assent of the state assembly. The BJP has taken a soft line on the latter two issues, which satisfied the NC.
Former Union minister and NC MP Saifuddin Soz at first said there was "no question" of supporting the BJP government but eventually came around. JD MPs I.K. Gujral and Paswan, both of who won with the aid of the BJP's allies, played mediators between Soz and Abdullah and the talks took place in the JDPP office.
Meanwhile, Paswan remains the major stumbling-block in the reunification of the JD, reduced to six MPs. While all of Laloo's former detractors—the Left, the SP and senior members of the JD itself—would like to welcome him back into the fold, Paswan is uncompromising. Even before the elections, JD ideologue Surendra Mohan had put Laloo's offer of seat adjustment to the party's political affairs committee, but it was rejected. Laloo, sitting pretty with 17 MPs, continues to make overtures, in the hope that reunification will obviate the need for Congress support to the RJD government in Bihar. But Paswan and his supporters may well quit the JD if the issue is forced. The Samata Party has made no secret of its willingness to accept him, but Paswan says he would prefer isolation.
AS an RJD MP points out, fodder scam accused Laloo remains a natural ally of the UF despite the fact that it threw him out. But AGP leader Prafulla Kumar Mahanta was the first to announce he would quit the UF if it aligned with the Congress, although Front leaders had stuck with him through thick and thin and the LOC scam. Mahanta, Abdullah and the TDP's Chandrababu Naidu, united in their anti-Congressism, have now floated the "National Front".
Ideally, the TDP would have liked to continue with its equidistant stance. But with the BJP's margin too slim for comfort—thanks to Prem Singh Lalpura's recalcitrance and Vijayaraje Scindia's illness—Naidu had no option but to rush to its rescue. The alternative, to prop up a Sonia-led Congress government, was politically and personally anathema to Naidu.
The idea behind the National Front is to parade Farooq Abdullah before the TDP's Muslim constituents, thus establishing Naidu's secular credentials. By having had a scheduled caste MP elected Speaker, he has already scored a point with the Dalits. For the TDP, winning the forthcoming assembly polls is an imperative. The BJP, besides offering one Cabinet and two state berths to the party, has also suggested a seat-sharing adjustment for the assembly poll, with the TDP getting two-thirds of the total. Another imperative for Naidu is to keep his party together. By aligning with the BJP, he has averted the danger of a split and acquired leverage over the Central government.
While Surjeet and Co have sounded prophecies of doom, predicting that Naidu will be wiped out in the forthcoming assembly elections without the Left and Muslim vote, he still has sympathisers within the UF, notably in the CPI. A day before the trust vote and four days after Naidu had formally quit the UF, he helped the CPI win a Rajya Sabha seat from Andhra Pradesh. The CPI, having lost out in Bihar because of Laloo's exit from the UF, did not want a repeat in AP. With two MPs and 17 MLAs in the state, it would have preferred friendly relations with the TDP.
Nor was the CPI—or for that matter, the RSP and the Forward Bloc—sanguine about the CPI(M)'s all-out declaration of support to the Congress. A section of the CPI has yet to forget Mulayam's failure to reach any understanding with the other UF members in UP, despite the arbitration of Surjeet, his friend, philosopher and guide. "The question of our future equation with the Congress and UF will come up during the party congress," said CPI leader Atul Anjaan.
The CPI(M)'s new-found pro-Congressism is fuelled by Mamata Bannerjee's success in West Bengal. Bannerjee's contention that the state Congress is the B-team of Left struck a public chord and her infant Trinamul walked off with seven seats. But in Kerala, the Left Democratic Front's main rival is the Congress-led United Democratic Front. Likewise, in Tripura, a tie-up with the TUJS has ensured a Left-led government, with the Congress in the opposition. Being cadre-based parties, the two units have adopted the central leadership's line.
For its part, the SP was the keenest to prevent a BJP government at the Centre, as it was already saddled with one in UP. By ignoring Naidu's suggestion of equidistance—that is, a hands-off approach to government formation—the SP facilitated the TDP's exit from the UF and simultaneous alignment with the BJP. To stymie his arch-enemy, Kalyan Singh, Mulayam would have liked to negotiate a tie-up with the Bahujan Samaj Party but this was foiled by Kanshi Ram. Although reduced to five seats in the Lok Sabha, he has not softened his stand vis-a-vis the SP. Mulayam is now looking to the RJD and Laloo appears amenable. "Sabko ek hona hi hai (everyone must unite)," he said, pointing out that although Mulayam had campaigned in Bihar, he had not done the same in UP. Having drawn a blank in Bihar, the SP has realised that Laloo's Muslim-Yadav bastion in the state cannot be dented.
The "Yadvisation" of Bihar and UP has worked to the BJP's advantage as all the other castes ganged up against them, laments Paswan. This view is echoed by Ajit Singh: "In both states, the other backwards have gone to the BJP and Samata." Pre-election negotiations with the BJP having broken down, he lost in Baghpat and is in a limbo. The Congress would be a natural ally but is virtually non-existent in UP.
In Tamil Nadu, the TMC and the DMK are sticking together and with the UF out of necessity. Talk of a TMC merger with the Congress died down after prospects of a Congress-led government receded. The DMK, which fears the dismissal of its state government on law and order grounds, hit back at the AIADMK when explosives were found in the home of a sympathiser last week. But its position remains shaky. Only if Jayalalitha and the BJP were to fall out and its own tie-up with the TMC were to break, would the DMK have the option of aligning with the BJP.
The third force, a virtual electoral nonentity during the 1998 Lok Sabha election, with its nominees fighting each other, has yet to sink its differences. But then, its three components—the communists, the socialists and the regional parties—have a history of falling apart and coming together again. Words of comfort from Paswan: "There will always be a Third Front, in some shape or form."
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