The Hindu : Front Page : Parties bracing for post-poll scenario

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Thursday, Apr 29, 2004

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Front Page

Parties bracing for post-poll scenario

By Neena Vyas and Javed M. Ansari

NEW DELHI, APRIL 28 . With exit polls having predicted a hung Parliament, political parties have started looking seriously at the post-poll scenario so as not to be caught off-guard when the results are declared on May 13. The first to jump into action is the CPI (M), which has taken the initiative to try and consolidate the non-BJP, non-National Democratic Alliance (NDA) parties. The BJP has begun to say that it does not rule out post-poll alliances with the non-NDA parties.

The CPI (M) leaders are said to be in touch with the Samajwadi Party chief, Mulayam Singh Yadav, the DMK leader, M. Karunanidhi, the Rashtriya Janata Dal president, Laloo Prasad Yadav, the Nationalist Congress Party leader, Sharad Pawar, and a number of smaller parties. The aim is to ensure that all of them support the formation of a secular government and that they are not outmanoeuvred in the event of the NDA not getting a majority.

It seems that the Left is keen on avoiding a repetition of the 1999 scenario after the Vajpayee Government lost the vote of confidence in Parliament when the secular parties could not get their act together. One of the "issues" at that time was the leadership question and Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav failed to come up with the requisite support for the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi. This time, the CPI (M) leaders are busy working behind the scenes to sort out the issue, preferably before May 13.

The current verbal sparring between Mr. Laloo Yadav and Mr. Mulayam Singh has come as a disappointment to the Left parties, as they would like to avoid a split in the secular ranks. Today, in an interview to a television channel given in Patna, Mr. Laloo Yadav said that he would have no truck with Mr. Mulayam Singh.

With Mr. Mulayam Singh unwilling to commit himself to supporting a secular alliance led by the Congress, Mr. Laloo Yadav fired another salvo at him. "There will be role for the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister to play in the formation of a secular government after the polls." He also said that the question of choosing a leader for the secular alliance would arise only "if" the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, were to refuse to accept the leadership. At that stage, the alliance leaders would sit down and "choose" another leader.

Mr. Laloo Yadav was responding to reports in a section of the press suggesting that Mr. Mulayam Singh had his eye on the prime ministerial chair. In fact, the Bihar strongman charged his Uttar Pradesh counterpart with acting at the behest of the BJP to divide the "secular vote."

"He is a stooge in their hands, he has put up candidates in consultation with the BJP so that my votes are cut," alleged the RJD chief, who has been apparently upset by the 40 candidates put up by the SP in Bihar when the SP does not command that kind of strength in the State. "He is not anti-BJP; he is doing everything he can to help them," Mr. Laloo Yadav claimed.

The Congress assessment is that Mr. Laloo Yadav will certainly not go along with any formation that has Mr. Mulayam Singh as prime minister, but that "neither Mr. Laloo Prasad nor the Nationalist Congress Party of Sharad Pawar would have any problem working with Sonia Gandhi." There is also the view that the BJP is deliberately trying to "encourage" Mr. Mulayam Singh to act as the spoiler.

The fact is that to Mr. Mulayam Singh's discomfiture, the BJP has openly talked of him as a "potential" post-poll ally. The result has been a reported shift of a section of the Muslim votes away from the Samajwadi Party to the Congress.

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