Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Four fronts in the fray' that was published in Newsband

Four fronts in the fray

If the combined tally of the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party falls below 272 seats, then the third front which is Aam Aadmi Party stands a chance of forming a government of its own. Many of the major regional parties have the option of tying up with one of the three parties most likely to lead the next government at the Centre.

The fourth front in its present form is a collection of regional parties with the backing of the two Left parties, the Communist Party of India and the Communist Party of India (Marxist). As far as the fourth front alternative is concerned, regional parties which are contesting seats in just one State can make their campaign more purposive and their cadres more enthusiastic. But there will be a race for the Prime Minister’s seat. AIADMK will want its leader Jayalalithaa to be the Prime Minister, and Mulayam Singh sees a similar role for himself, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar too would like to be in the race and so on.

But, realistically, a fourth front can take shape only after the election in a situation where the AAP, the Congress and the BJP find it difficult to form a government.

Given a chance Indians will kick Congress and BJP out forever. The stupendous show of AAP in its first election is proof. There is a realistic chance that Congress + BJP will be short of 250 seats this time. No common man on the street wants liars and corporate agents to rule the country.  

One can not ignore the impact of AAP on veteran parties. AAP truly deserves to be given some leverage while talking about national front. The Indian media does not seem to be doing enough justice to the AAP in the matter of giving deserving publicity. One cannot understand why our media is behaving like this.

What happened in Delhi can again happen in Lok Sabha election too considering the enthusiasm created by AAP especially in the rural areas as well as in the educated class. With both Congress and BJP being thoroughly discredited in governance - yes, including in Gujarat, whose hard numbers reflecting social and economic woes faced by the people there, are now getting increasingly public (recent revelation of Gujarat's rural poverty line of being a meagre Rs. 10.80 per capita per day), the people of India are now desperately seeking an alternative to both Congress and BJP.

The success of AAP in Delhi was a pointer to this. But, AAP will have to clearly mark up its stand on important issues like communalism, corporate loot of India under the current neo-liberal dispensation etc. It is up to the parties, other than two major parties, to decide immediately whether they can shape up a viable alliance at the national level replicating their successes in governance at the respective state level like in Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Odisha, Kerala, WB etc (under Left when they were in power). The country needs an alternate pro-people government based on sound and coherent policy.