Yet another third front

They have christened it the Third Force, but have Sharad Pawar and Mulayam Singh Yadav improved the chances of a third front's revival by...

They have christened it the Third Force, but have Sharad Pawar and Mulayam Singh Yadav improved the chances of a third front8217;s revival by merely renaming it? Hardly, to judge by the run-up to the announcement of the alliance between the Nationalist Congress Party and the Samajwadi Party and by the poor response from the putatively potential members of the front in the making.

The claim of the two leaders to a line of quot;equidistance from both the Congress and the BJPquot; is open to question. Not only because this was not the line that the third front appeared to be pursuing, with its distinct tilt towards the Congress, particularly during its regime at the Centre under H.D. Deve Gowda and Inder Kumar Gujral. But, even more because the BJP is the main beneficiary of the Pawar-Yadav tie-up. Not for no reason did the once implacably anti-Mulayam BJP pay fulsome tributes to the UP chieftain8217;s patriotism8217; when he raised the foreign origin8217; issue. There was an electoral reason, too, why the expulsion of the Maratha strongman was not a purely internal matter of the Congress to the ruling party leaders.

Notwithstanding any rhetoric and resolutions that may emanate from the new formation and its few friends, the Third Force cannot but appear to common observers as part of a political polarisation across the country. In other words, as a development that can divide anti-BJP votes. The frontcannot easily achieve a more positive presence in the immediate future.

The popular response to the front will, of course, be revealed at the hustings. The recent anti-Congress rebellion of the two leaders has, however, not been greeted with mass enthusiasm and the reason is obvious. It is the absence of credibility, again. Particularly lacking in this property has been the plank against dynastic politics supposedly shared by Yadav and Pawar. The repeated Mulayam pleas for a Sonia Gandhi led regime to replace the Vajpayee government may not have disappeared from public memory.

Pawar has not in the past treated 10 Janpath with lesser reverence than many of the Congress leaders he now lambasts. The poor political response to the alleged third alternative is already clear. The Left, which used to swear by something like the formula of the Third Force though it never entertained the equidistance8217; idea seriously, has been the first to leave the duo in the lurch.

A heavier blow to the NCP-SP hopes has been dealt by Laloo Yadav, the most natural of Mulayam8217;s allies. The Bihar neta8217; has answered the front8217;s call with a session of third front-twitting bonhomie with the CPIM8217;s Harkishen Singh Surjeet and a dinner with the presiding deity of the Congress.

Electorally, what this may entail is anything but a significant showing by the front, except possibly in Maharashtra. The prospect cannot be expected to promote the growth of the front. Pawar and Yadav are casting their net wide, but their likely catches seem limited as of now to parties that may be national in their concerns but certainly not in their constituencies like the Republican Party of India and the All-India Forward Bloc. The only other party talking of a third front is the Tamil Maanila Congress which, however, is staunchly pro-Sonia.

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