Alliance blues for Cong, BJP

Wooing Game: Allies are key to the formation of the next government at the Centre

Get the right partner to reach the goal post. That’s the mantra of the two major national parties – the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress – in the run-up to the elections to the 16th Lok Sabha. They may not be exactly scrambling to win allies but are leaving no stone unturned to bag friends, new and the once-deserted, even while trying to keep intact the few who have remained with them.

That the coalition era, which entered the political scene in a big way at the Centre in 1996, is here to stay is well-known. For five years before that, Congress ran a minority government. Today, 18 years later, no single party is in a position to grab power on its own. Hence, the wooing of regional parties. Each ally is key. Each seat counts. Target: 272 of 543 Lok Sabha seats. 

The Congress has set a bar though. It will align only with the `secular’ forces, as per the resolution adopted at the 2003 Shimla conclave. It was reiterated at the recent All India Congress Committee session held in Delhi. An AICC panel headed by senior leader A K Antony is going through the task of finding new allies. Till 2003, Congress had refused to believe in coalition politics and was dreaming of recapturing power single-handedly. BJP, on the other hand, was quick to realise the ground reality – it courted the new order in politics in 1998 and romped home in that year’s elections.  

The pretender to the throne now —the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance — is badly in need of allies in order to storm the Delhi citadel. After remaining in the opposition for the last two terms, the coalition is desperate to recapture power. The BJP is aware that having performed badly in the last two polls, it has a Herculean task: not only should it substantially improve its own performance, but also it has to get more allies who will push the NDA past the majority mark. 

The existing BJP allies – old friends the Shiv Sena and the Akali Dal - are small parties and cannot make a big dent and the BJP is aware of it. There are other odds - its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi is not some one who can inspire the potential allies. Modi’s polarising image is a negative factor in winning new friends although it may change post-poll.

PM’s chair 

The BJP’s plans to look at AIADMK as an ally has failed to come off as the regional outfit, expected to do well in the April-May polls, hopes that a fractured House may catapult its leader J Jayalalitha to the PM’s chair! The BJP had hoped that the new outfit in Andhra Pradesh (42 seats), YSR Congress, seen to be making the maximum of the mess the Congress has created in the southern state, could be its partner. Instead, the BJP has secured the support of the Telugu Desam Party. 

In the North, while there is no hope of having any alliance with the biggest state of Uttar Pradesh, in Bihar too, it will go alone. In Haryana, it has stitched a partnership with the Haryana Janhit Congress of Kuldip Bishnoi, son of former CM Bhajan Lal. 

The South and East are BJP’s weakest catchment areas. At present, from Odisha to West Bengal to the north east, the party has just 4 out of 86 seats while in south India, it has a mere 18 – all won from Karnataka – out of the 130. Perhaps realising this, the BJP is out to win friends in the South, and has secured support of TDP in Andhra Pradesh and Vaiko’s MDMK in Tamil Nadu(39 seats) while it is also wooing the DMDK of Vijayakant and the PMK of Ramadoss. 

As for Congress, except for Bihar – where 40 seats are up for grabs - there is hardly any new catch. After wooing JD(U) of chief minister Nitish Kumar, the party is almost certain of ramping up a tie-up with his rivals, Lalu Prasad of RJD and LJP of Ram Vilas Paswan. The alliance with Lalu and Paswan, Congress hopes, will have a spin-off effect in the neighbouring Jharkhand (14 seats.) 

Coalition problems

The Congress, which improved its performance in 2004 and 2009, was hoping for a pact with Mayawati of BSP in UP (80 seats) especially after the CBI clean chit to the Dalit leader in corruption cases. However, the BSP supremo, who partnered Congress in the 1996 Assembly polls and is giving outside support to it at the Centre, has announced that she will go solo. For the UPA leader, coalition problems have already started in terms of retaining the existing ones. 
Amid speculation that Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar met BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi (since denied), his colleague Praful Patel spoke in favour of Modi. While Congress dismissed talks of NCP deserting the coalition, many see this as NCP bargaining for more seats in Maharashtra (where the two run the coalition government) in both Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. 

The National Conference, which runs a coalition government in Jammu and Kashmir, is the other partner which may give it headaches - J&K CM and NC chief Omar Abdullah too has some soft words for Modi. In Assam, Congress may go for a pact with the All India United Democratic Front of Badruddin Ajmal. 

Putting up mutually acceptable candidates in the Rajya Sabha elections may be a pointer to political alignments for LS polls. While the Left Front is supporting the Congress-backed independent candidate in WB, the group has enlisted the support of the AIADMK  in Tamil Nadu. 

In West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, the Congress has been left friendless while in AP, the TRS is making Congress wait for its merger. In Maharashtra, the BJP has given up one of its seats to keep its alliance with  the Republican Party of India to field Ramdas Athawale instead of its leader Prakash Javadekar. 

Not to be counted out, the Third Front parties may come together yet again. Nitish Kumar is working to bring together the erstwhile Janata Dal parties such as SP, JD(U), BJD and JD(S). They plan to have on board AIADMK, YSR Congress and Left parties. 

To begin with, this Janata parivar crowd may form a Parliamentary block. Such cobbling activity is likely to continue in the weeks to come. Post-poll, there will certainly be a rush to gain more friends if elections throw up a hung House as expected.

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