Drifting to poles

Both Mulayam and Laloo Prasad Yadav, bitter enemies until not long ago, have hitched their new Rashtriya Loktantrik Morcha on to the Congressbandwagon. This has left the other constituents of the UF with little choice but to look to the Congress.

The JD, which led the UF government for 18 months, and suffered at the hands of the Congress is readily cozying up to that party. Similarly, the Left 8211;despite serious reservations about the Congress8217; economic agenda 8212; is showing a fair degree of anxiety over the party taking the initiative in forming an alternative government. And as for the TMC, it is just a regional incarnation of the Congress which came into being not out of any ideological conflict with the parent party but due to compulsions of realpolitik.

Given the decimation of the UF and its giving up of even the pretence of anti-Congressism, the political arena is all set to witness a battle between the BJP and the Congress. The Left which does not seem capable of expanding its area of influence beyond West Bengal and Kerala, the JD which exists only in Karnataka, and the regional parties will end up as appendages of the Congress.

Theexit of the Samajwadi Party from the UF in fact comes as no surprise. The compulsions of both Mulayam8217;s SP and Laloo Yadav8217;s Rashtriya Janata Dal to align with the Congress are understandable. In Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, where the BJP and its allies are locked in contest with these two parties, it will suit the SP and RJD to be on the right side of the Congress. For, the Congress occupies the prime Opposition space in national politics, after the marginalisation of the UF.

These compulsions are nothing new and have existed from the day the UF came into being, threatening its unity from time to time. It was only power that ensured its survival in government for 18 months. The moment it lost power after the Congress pulled the rug from under its feet the internal contradictions in the coalition came to the fore starting the process of its disintegration.

The TDP couldn8217;t but have supported the BJP government at the Centre for a Congress-led dispensation was untenable for it in Andhra Pradesh. It would havebeen incongruous for it to be part of or support a Congress-led government at the Centre when it had to take on the same party in the State.

Even during the last Lok Sabha elections, the UF hardly projected a united face. This was best illustrated by the fact that the JD and the SP undercut each other in several seats in Uttar Pradesh. Each constituent had its own arrangement, tacit or otherwise, with either the Congress or the BJP. This, despite the declaration of a policy of equidistance which UF chairman H.D.Deve Gowda was so fond of reiterating.

Today, of course, Gowda has also been forced to change tack. He is prepared to take all the abuse heaped on his party by Mulayam in his stride. 8220;We are prepared to support both the new front as well as the Congress in their fight against communalism,8221; the UF chairman says, conveniently forgetting his strong anathema for the party that unceremoniously showed him the door when in government.

This is a predicament that even the Left parties face. Oppositionto the Congress on certain issues notwithstanding, they realise that they cannot fight the BJP on their own. Which is why they did not decry Mulayam8217;s exit from the UF. They know that it is Mulayam and Laloo who command the Muslim vote in UP and Bihar which becomes crucial in the mobilisation of the anti-BJP vote.

But again within the Left, total unanimity vis-a-vis a relationship with the Congress is elusive. For Left leaders of West Bengal, friendship with the Congress at the Centre does not pose problems but not so for those from Kerala. In Bengal, the space occupied by the Congress has been taken over by Mamata Banerjee of the Trinamool Congress.

West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu has said that the 8220;Congress is the only party which can emerge as an alternative to the BJP.8221; He has also been quoted as saying that the party 8220;has a secular character even though there are certain communal elements in it.8221;

But for the CPIM-led Left Democratic Front in Kerala, the Congress is still the main enemy.Similarly, the Revolutionary Socialist Party and Forward Bloc, both constituents of the Left Front, have declared their opposition to any deal with the Congress.

Despite these contradictions, a change in the Left attitude towards Laloo has been visible over the last couple of months. Not long ago, it treated Laloo as an untouchable following his alleged involvement in the fodder scam. But in Parliament recently it joined the SP in condemning the CBI taking the help of the Army to arrest Laloo after he was charge-sheeted.

In the prevailing political climate in which the Congress is clearly taking the position of the second pole and with the non-BJP parties giving up their anti-Congressism, it is difficult to see how relevant space can be created for the re-emergence of the Third Force in the immediate future.