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Opinion Lead
Revival of a failed idea
Vidya Subrahmaniam
The third space in Indian politics is the largest and the most diverse, and yet the third alternative has remained an unfulfilled
experiment
A visitor to the Indian Capital, feeding mostly off television news and the buzz on the streets, is likely to come to two
conclusions about the 2014 general election. That the Bharatiya Janata Partys Narendra Modi and the Congresss
Rahul Gandhi will face off in a gladiatorial prime-ministerial contest. And that just maybe, the two will be given a run
for their money, muscle and marketing by the newest sensation in the political bazaar the Aam Aadmi Partys
Arvind Kejriwal.
The irony is: Together, the BJP and the Congress have suzerainty over only a fourth of a total of 38 recognised political
parties that have a presence in the current Lok Sabha. The AAP, for all the raucous attention it has gathered, is not
even a factor in the lower House.
For the first time since 1998, the BJP and the Congress will each go into a general election with a coalition that would
be hard to recognise as one. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) which touched a peak of 22 constituents under
Atal Bihari Vajpayee is a rump today. Mr. Modis arrival hastened the NDAs fragmentation though recently there has
been some consolidation with the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) already on board and the
Telugu Desam Party (TDP) expected to follow suit. There could be a few more small conquests but not enough to
return the NDA to its previous glory.
The once formidable United Progressive Alliance (UPA) has unspooled into a rickety, unsure five-member coalition.
The Congresss two largest allies, the Nationalist Congress Party and the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference,
have eight and three Lok Sabha seats respectively, but this has not stopped them from getting aggressive with the
senior. The partys probable new allies, the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Lok Jan Shakti Party, are themselves
fighting comeback battles.
Furthering national ambitions
So two months to the election, the biggest newsmakers are two almost non-existent coalitions and one energetic, livewire of a party that has thrown away its only government in the city-state of Delhi. Nonetheless, the trio have got
discussed and dissed, trashed and backed as if there was no world outside of their proclamations and protestations.
In truth, the largest number of political parties, representing a diverse range of interests, exist outside the command
areas of the two biggies and the bright young rebel. Last year, 14 of them came together on a non-Congress, non-BJP
platform. More recently, there has been some indication of a revival of the third alternative. The news has attracted
weary disinterest but for one matter: Will the new bloc nominate J. Jayalalithaa for Prime Minister? Unsurprisingly,
the question irritated the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister. In a hard-to-miss snub intended at Mr. Modi, she said it was
futile for any party to announce a prime ministerial candidate without knowing the shape of the new Lok Sabha.
She is right. Technically, all 38 parties in the current Lok Sabha, and even those with no Lok Sabha seat, can
nominate their own prime ministerial candidates. A gaggle of 38 or more self-declared PM-aspirants will be comical,
of course. But the unlikely eventuality would also reflect an inescapable political reality: Every regional satrap, from
Ms Jayalalithaa through Mayawati, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Mamata Banerjee, Naveen Patnaik and Nitish Kumar, is
today a shadow Prime Minister in his or her own perception.
In fact, the larger national ambition of these leaders is one reason why the third alternative idea has resurfaced. Any
political leader who is part of either the NDA or the UPA is automatically ruled out for the top executives post. Mr.
Modis sectarian image is not the only roadblock against the NDAs expansion. His being named the coalitions prime
ministerial candidate is itself a deterrent against significant additions to it. The case of the All India Anna Dravida
Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) illustrates this. The AIADMK was considered a sure bet for inclusion in the NDA.
The process was halted by Mr. Modis emergence as PM-in-waiting. Why should Ms Jayalalithaa or for that matter
any of the other regional leaders, foreclose his or her own prime ministerial possibility by peremptorily accepting Mr.
Modis leadership? From a regional perspective, the presumptive NaMo versus Rahul projection, so favoured by
pundits, could seem an insult to Indias federal spirit and diversity.
And yet the very ambition that makes the third alternative a seasonal election-eve occurrence also robs it of its
credibility and renders it unattractive compared to two other options that have caught the electorates imagination
this season: Mr. Modi himself and the phenomenal AAP. For a media in search of revenue-spinning news, Mr. Modi
and Mr. Kejriwal are obviously better TRP-pullers than a recycled third plank spouting the virtues of secularism
even as its members freely changed sides.
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