NEW DELHI, Dec 13: If there is a leader who holds the key to the national election this time, it is Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Kanshi Ram. He may or may not win a sizeable number of seats himself, but he is in a position to decide who will sit on the Delhi throne.The states where he matters are UP, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab, and to a lesser extent, Rajasthan. What happens if the Hindi-speaking States could determine the single largest entity to lead a coalition at the Centre.If Kanshi goes it alone, it would mean advantage BJP. If he joins hands with the non-BJP forces, they could together give the saffron party a run for its money. In the process, they could bag many more seats themselves and emerge as important players in the 12th Lok Sabha.As for the BJP, it has to make inroads in the South but also improve its position in the North to graduate to the ruling-party status. It could do this by aligning with the BSP. However, if the BSP joins hands with its opponents, the BJP may face problems in the Hindi belt.The key to fight the BJP in the North is to ensure a one-to-one contest against the saffron party. This had ensured the victory of the National Front in 1989 when its adversary was the Congress. The Janata Dal (JD) had aligned with the BJP on one hand and the Left parties on the other without the Left and the BJP having a direct alliance with each other. This time, it will have to be a more complex exercise in UP. Unlike 1989, when the Left parties did not have much of a stake in the Hindi heartland, both the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the BSP are major players in UP. Moreover, Kanshi has to contend with Mayawati who cannot forgive Mulayam, and the SP chief has Amar Singh who believes that the Thakur votes that the party is beginning to garner in eastern UP, may desert it again if it embraces the BSP. Both Mulayam and Kanshi are hard bargainers.If Chacha Kesri manages the impossible task of tying up with both Mulayam and Kanshi in UP, directly or indirectly, he would be positioning the Congress for the single largest party slot. Because he would be undercutting the BJP where it matters the most, even if one were to allow for a general 3-4 per cent swing towards the BJP in the forthcoming election due to the incumbency factor. ``It would mean that this group would be on a winning spree in UP,'' said a senior Congress leader.The arithmetic of the 1996 polls makes this amply clear. The BJP had polled 33.4 per cent votes, the Congress 8, the Tiwari Congress 2.9, SP 21, BSP 20.7, and the JD 4.5 per cent.A Mulayam-Congress alliance which is on the cards, for all Mulayam's prevarications essentially to keep the Left in good humour, is not good enough to rein in the BJP. A triangular contest with Kanshi fighting alone would go to help the BJP, and that is what the anti-BSP lobby in the BJP is banking on. Given the importance of the alliance, Kesri has himself been dealing with both parties. He has deputed Pranab Mukherji and K Vijayabhaskara Reddy to negotiate with AIADMK leader Jayalalitha.In Madhya Pradesh also, a Congress-BSP alliance would enable the Congress to run neck-and-neck with the BJP in straight contests. The Congress had polled 32.4 per cent votes in the 1996 Lok Sabha elections, and this would have gone above 37 had the Tiwari Congress not strayed. The BSP had 8.5 per cent votes. Together they would add up to 46 per cent. The BJP polled 43 per cent votes last time. Laloo has already announced the formation of an anti-BJP front comprising the RJD, Congress, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (Soren) and some others.
