Poor third

The latest incarnation of the Third Front continues to strive to find ways and means to illustrate the irrelevance of its founding concept. Its decision on Monday to seek the re-election of Dr Abdul Kalam as president of India is bizarre not because of his credentials. It is so because he had made it explicit that he would not find it dignified to seek re-election without a broad enough consensus on his candidature. Only one of two outcomes, therefore, could possibly accrue from the announcement by J. Jayalalithaa8217;s statement on behalf of the Front. One, Dr Kalam would decline, and the battle would remain pitched between the NDA and the UPA. Two, a large enough bloc from within the UPA and the NDA would shift allegiance to Kalam.

Either way, the Third Front 8212; most unimaginatively named the United National Progressive Alliance 8212; would illustrate the impossibility of being a constructive force in national politics by maintaining equidistance from the UPA and NDA. Even their chosen name borrows heavily from the two national alliances. We understand the benefits Jayalalithaa and her band of out-of-power chief ministers see in forming the alliance. For reasons of electoral combat in their respective states, they cannot be part of the ruling alliance of the moment. To maximise their chances in future electoral chances, they don8217;t want to share oppositional space with the national Opposition. The 8220;third alternative8221;, in all its variations since 1989, has played to these two dynamics.

But here8217;s the catch. Each time the third alternative has been viable enough to be in power at the Centre, it has had to take the support of the BJP 1989 or the Congress 1996. If only its constituents would realise the logical benefits from that. If they remain antagonistic to both parties, their influence is limited to the ability to play spoiler. The Congress and the BJP no longer see self-benefit in giving outside support to an assortment of regional parties. So, if the third alternative wants to be salient, it must learn the skill of issue-wise bipartisan cooperation with the ruling party or the Opposition, depending on the situation. Otherwise, as the presidential sweepstakes show, they will simply continue to make a spectacle of their insignificance, and sometimes even churlishness.