Polarised parivar

Yet another nail has been driven into the coffin of the concept of the Third Front. This is the fallout of the latest acrobatics staged i...

Yet another nail has been driven into the coffin of the concept of the Third Front. This is the fallout of the latest acrobatics staged in the interminably long Janata parivar circus. The coming together of the Dal8217;s faction led by Sharad Yadav and Rambilas Paswan, the Samata Party of George Fernandes and Nitish Kumar and the Lok Shakti of Ramakrishna Hegde is a continuation of the trend of polarisation in the country8217;s politics.

From Yadav has come the candid confession that the choice had been between the two 8220;main streams8221; left in the field 8212; the corollary being the clear irrelevance of others in either a front or fragments thereof, despite their allegedly independent identity and existence.

The choice of the three parties, of which two are represented in the Vajpayee government, has predictably fallen on the National Democratic Alliance led by the Bharatiya Janata Party. Sections of the parivar8217;s constituency may have sharp things to say about it all. But, to the public at large, the added pace ofthe polarisation is likely to be quite welcome.

It can have no serious complaint about the fading away of a front, or any of its constituents, that had become a factor of instability at the Centre.The decision does not bring an inch closer the prospect of the parivar8217;s return to power.

The second funniest remark to have been made after the far-from-epochal event is the one by Hegde reassuring the BJP that the reunification is no threat to it. Of course, it is not. Who8217;s afraid of a Janata Dal that hardly exists in much of the country? Karnataka has been its last surviving bastion, and its image even there is in a shambles.

The alacrity with which the state BJP has sought to stave off Chief Minister J.H. Patel8217;s offer of an alliance, with Civil Aviation Minister Ananth Kumar catching the first available flight to New Delhi in an attempt to avoid a tarnishing tie-up with a discredited Dal is a giveaway. Bihar, once the proudly-flaunted Dal showpiece, has only second-string leaders like Sharad Yadav andPaswan associated with the party ever since Laloo Prasad Yadav lost his larger-than-life stature of the pre-fodder-scam period.

The funniest observation after the event has emanated from Fernandes, comparing the agreed arrangement 8212; participation in the polls under the Dal symbol and a post-poll merger 8212; to the origins of the alternative of 1977.

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The original Janata Party was the result of an anti-Emergency unity, and it was a force to reckon with in an election that witnessed a wave. The truncated Dal is no comparison at all.

The constituency acquired by the Janata Dal under V.P. Singh has cause to complain. Diehard Mandalites and the social justice8217; campaigners can only disapprove of the alliance as an ideological compromise and worse. This is unlikely to bother the authors of the move unduly, considering the decline over the years in the value of the card of caste politics for the Dal with the Samata and Lok Shakti never among the staunchly Mandalite. From the Janata parivar to the extendedSangh parivar, it is hardly the impossible leap it may have seemed not too long ago.