The third divided front

The Assembly elections in Assam were supposed to a test case for the new 8216;third front8217;. As the day wore on, and the Congress-led forces shifted uneasily at what at one stage looked like a hung Assembly before breathing easy, the non-Congress, non-BJP alternative lay aborted.

The Assembly elections in Assam were supposed to a test case for the new 8216;third front8217;. As the day wore on, and the Congress-led forces shifted uneasily at what at one stage looked like a hung Assembly before breathing easy, the non-Congress, non-BJP alternative lay aborted.

Pulled at varied directions by as varied a group of leaders, the Samajwadi Party-sponsored 8216;national alternative8217; with Chandrababu Naidu8217;s TDP, Farooq Abdullah8217;s National Conference, O P Chautala8217;s INLD and Prafulla Mahanta8217;s Asom Gana Parishad faction AGP-P did not get the support of the Left, which had an 8216;8216;understanding8217;8217; with Brindaban Goswami8217;s AGP.

In fact, even in West Bengal, the Left not only threw SP8217;s demand for 12 seats straight out the window, it instead gave two seats to the party8217;s bitter rival RJD, which won in Barabazaar.

In Assam, the SP-backed Mahanta faction of the AGP managed a sum total of one seat in the 126-member House. An upbeat Amar Singh nevertheless said the relation between SP and the Left has not altered: 8216;8216;We share similar views and we are with the Left to form a non-Congress, non-BJP alliance.8217;8217;

But CPI8217;s D Raja hit the nail on its head: 8216;8216;The Third Front is not a readymade front that can be assembled anytime; it is not an electoral front but has to emerge through a people8217;s movement based on common policies and programmes. No party can claim to be part of the Third Front as it is yet to evolve.8217;8217; He said an alternative 8220;is already emerging in UP where CPI has supported V P Singh8217;s Kisan Manch.8217;8217; The former prime minister8217;s recently revived Jan Morcha is yet another alternative pitted against the UP chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav in the state.

Meanwhile, even within the Left-AGP patchwork there was serious fissure till this afternoon, when a hung Assembly looked a possibility 8212; the Left were anxious about a last-minute patch-up between the AGP and BJP, with a shot at the hot seat. There has been a niggling lack of trust between the two, and they have different viewpoints on the Illegal Migrants Determination by Tribunals Act, with the Left parties backing the Act as it is provisioned in the Common Minimum Programme, while the AGP opposed it.

These have been troubled times for the third front for other reasons. One major constituent of the front was Deve Gowda8217;s Janata DalS. The developments in Karnataka, with JDS joining hands with the BJP, showed why he can no longer be part of a non-Congress, non-BJP political formation. Incidentally, Gowda had also been a part of the LDF in Kerala.

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