It’s early days for a third front

The idea of a third front pops up when regional chieftains get together or the ruling party suffers a reverse, as happened when JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar became

The idea of a third front pops up when regional chieftains get together or the ruling party suffers a reverse, as happened when JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar became Bihar’s chief minister again or when Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee invited state satraps to her swearing-in ceremony.

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Not unexpectedly, there is a growing concern among the non-BJP parties about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s increasing footprint. More so after the recently-held five state polls, when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) managed to create a hype over its victory in Assam and its increased vote-share in Kerala. After Delhi and Bihar, many had begun to question whether Modi could make it back in 2019. Now it is back to the 2014 rhetoric — looking at Modi beyond a five-year term.

If recent history is anything to go by, three factors have pushed disparate groups of parties to make common cause — in 1977, 1989, 1996 — and defeat the ruling party, at that time the Congress, which was the central pole of the polity. Now it is the BJP. These were more than normal levels of anger against the ruling dispensation, the creation of a pivot in the alternative to hold it together and a leadership that had popular support. The longevity of the fronts is altogether a different story.

The Left fronts worked over decades in West Bengal and in Kerala because a large party, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), held them together, and the additional adhesive in their case was a programmatic cohesion, which has been missing in other similar endeavours.

In 1977, the pivot was the Janata Party formed after the merger of five outfits, and it was anger against Indira Gandhi’s 1975-77 Emergency rule abridging fundamental freedoms that brought them together.

The National Front in 1989 under Vishwanath Pratap Singh’s stewardship was unprecedented in its sweep, bringing together virtually all then on-Congress forces under one umbrella. It too had a centrepiece in the Janata Dal — formed through the merger of groups that had splintered away from the erstwhile Janata Party. The three-tiered arrangement was backed by regional parties with the ‘outside’ support of the BJP and Left parties.

The United Front government in 1996-97 was somewhat different, headed by two prime ministers, HD Deve Gowda and Inder Kumar Gujral, in two years, and inherently more unstable because a larger Congress supported, from the outside, a smaller core.

In the absence of a strong pivot, it is the mass appeal of a leader which acts as a glue. This had happened in 1977, when Jayaprakash Narayan helped create the Janata Party, and in 1987-89, when VP Singh managed to replace Rajiv Gandhi as “Mr Clean” and as prime minister in 1989.

In these cases, mega egos of leaders proved to be their undoing. The bickering between the constituents of the Janat a Party sent the government of Morarji Desai packing in two and a half years.

Though the Mandal-Kamandal conundrum ostensibly brought down the ‘VP’ government, it was really the large-sized egos of the leaders in the Janata Dal that unleashed forces that spun out of control. Ditto with the United Front government.

At present a formation of regional parties, of equals, headed by mass leaders in their own right — be it Trinamool’s Mamata Banerjee, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s (AIADMK’s) J Jayalalithaa, Biju Janata Dal’s Naveen Patnaik, JD(U)’s Nitish Kumar, Bahujan Samaj Party’s Mayawati or Samajwadi Party’s Mulayam Singh Yadav — is that much more difficult to stitch together. As in the past, they would find it difficult to accept each other’s leadership.

Nor is there a leader on the horizon, at least as of now, who can bring these groups together. Kumar, given his upright image and track record of good governance in Bihar, could play that role but he would need to find acceptance all over India, at least large parts of north India.

There is no getting away from the fact that the Congress would have to be the pivot for a non-BJP front. The Congress may be ready to play second fiddle and even support a leader from an as-yet-imaginary federal front as prime minister, rather than lead itself, so as to defeat the BJP. From all accounts, Rahul Gandhi is ready to revise his earlier “go solo” policy. But the Congress has to come across as a party on the ascendance, bringing in new energy, rather than as an organisation losing successive elections, with no clarity on who will lead it.

It goes without saying that the BJP is not going to sit idle. Given the state-level contradictions — the DMK vs AIADMK, SP vs BSP, Mamatavs Left— the BJP will try and enlarge the scope of the NDA, knowing that alliances are going to be even more critical for it in 2019 than was the case in 2014. It is already reaching out to the AIADMK to join the NDA. Interestingly, on the day of the party’s victory in Assam, Modi focused not on the BJP but on the NDA.

A lot hinges on what happens in the elections in 2017 (Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Gujarat) and in 2018 (Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan), but the psychological barrier to cross will be UP, which will set the momentum for 2019.

Much will also depend on the kind of mistakes the BJP makes in the months to come, and whether or not they generate popular anger. So it is early days to speak of a third or a federal front — or to make `khayali pulao’.

Neerja Chowdhury is a senior journalist. The views expressed are personal.