Outside support is something that vitally affects the United Front, both as a giver and a taker. It remained in power only as long as it received such support from a reluctant Congress. Its survival for long as a single political entity can hardly be envisaged without its agreeing to extend backing of a like kind to either of the other two blocs. An immediate result of the hung Parliament produced by the polls was indeed a hung Front. The `third Front', as its theoreticians have continued to project such combines, proved a Trishanku Front. Its constituents took only a few days to divide themselves into camp-followers of the two main contenders for power. The Telugu Desam Party, under UF convener Chandrababu Naidu, has not evaded the issue by talking of "equidistance" from the Congress and the BJP; the Left is right to argue that the TDP abstention on the vote of confidence in the probable Atal Behari Vajpayee government would amount to support for it.There is little doubt that, despite CPI(M) Politburomember Sitaram Yechury enjoining a vote of equal hostility to the `hand' and the saffron, the rest of the Front, including CPI(M)'s own Harkishen Singh Surjeet and Jyoti Basu, are of as clearly a pro-Congress resolve as Samajwadi Party's Mulayam Singh Yadav, even if that means legitimisation of dynastic politics in our democratic polity. In the popular perception, the UF was overeager to support a Congress government even when the once-preeminent party had reconciled itself to spending some time in the Opposition. The balance of forces, which bestowed no undue advantage on either of the bigger formations, should have been a blessing in disguise for the UF. It could have even imparted the Front a clout but only if it had remained united.Sitaram Kesri, Sharad Pawar, and others may have talked of jettisoning the Jain Commission report and making up with the DMK and the TMC and of forging a secular Front with a place of pride for Jyoti Basu, but S.S. Ahluwalia may have spoken more authentically for the newCongress leadership in ruling out rapport with such enemies of Rajivism. The Front, as constituted now, can hardly be in a hurry to find its receding relevance in an anti-BJP phalanx. It does not occur to the UF constituents that there is a large section of voters who would like the Front to play its rightful role as an Opposition group, rather than support either the Congress or the BJP.There is a major irony in the present scenario that merits note. The fractured electoral mandate has bestowed ludicrously disproportionate importance on several bit players, including parties with single-digit parliamentary strength. It has, however, reduced to ridiculous proportions the influence of the Front, whose constituents were in power in a large number of states. Today a one-man show like the Janata Party can evoke greater awe than the disunited Front. The UF has only itself to blame for its present predicament.
