After having ridiculed the BJP the whole of last week for its inability to keep the NDA intact in the wake of the BJD walking out of the opposition alliance in Orissa, the Congress is facing the same predicament. Its most dependable ally, RJD, has decided to part ways with the UPA in Bihar and Jharkhand.
RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav?s assertion on Saturday that there is no scope for reconciliation with the Congress in Bihar and Jharkhand clearly means that the UPA will not be united in these two states, thereby ceding the NDA an edge. The Congress has already declared it will field candidates in 37 out of 40 seats in Bihar and has inducted Lalu Prasad?s brother-in-law, Sadhu Yadav, into the party. On Sunday, Lalu Yadav said that his party, along with Ramvilas Paswan?s LJP, would put up candidates in all seats of Bihar and Jharkhand.
The RJD?s desertion has strengthened the impression that the UPA is unravelling. The possibility of the UPA being on a sticky wicket had gained traction after negotiations for seat-sharing between the Congress and SP in Uttar Pradesh failed and a question mark persisted over the tie-up with NCP in Maharashtra. UP, along with Bihar and Jharkhand, together accounts for over 135 seats. As it seems now, the Congress could consider itself lucky if it manages to win seats in double digits from this belt.
The resulting fragmentation has underscored the shift in momentum away from the two national parties to the regional forces. While a Third Front may not be a feasible option at this juncture, political observers think some kind of alternative will eventually result in which either of the two major parties may end up as a supporting partner.
A senior Congress minister casts the blame on the party?s failure to conduct a reality check and take decisions in accordance with the ground situation. He contends that the undiluted power enjoyed by the party (it kept all the key portfolios to itself, be it home, finance, law and defence), despite being in a coalition has made the Congress arrogant and created a distance from regional allies. ?All five years, we enjoyed power instead of strengthening the party in states like Bihar, West Bengal, UP and Tamil Nadu,? he says, even as he expresses hopes of a last-minute reconciliation between the Congress and SP and Congress and RJD.
This, however, is easier said than done. Most allies in the ruling alliance are arch rivals in the states. This, in fact, is the basic difference between the UPA and NDA. The BJP and its allies have largely complemented each other in the states.
Other trouble spots for the Congress and UPA are becoming more pronounced. In the south, the PMK, holding the key to the Vanniyar vote, is likely to cross over to the Jayalalithaa camp as the DMK has been unable to match the AIADMK offer of seven seats made to PMK boss M Ramadoss, one more than what he had in alliance with the UPA in 2004.
In Maharashtra, an uneasy alliance is on the cards despite the 26:22 seat-sharing formula, the higher number for the Congress and the lower for NCP. The general impression is that the NCP will go all out in undercutting Congress chances in all 26 constituencies in which the Congress will contest.