Birth pangs not over yet

Janata Parivar wary of common flag, symbol agenda

It is said that the actual leader of a feral herd is the biggest and the meanest of the Stallions. It is the mare with the most common sense, the one who inspires trust in her herd members. The horse facts tell us that it is this mare that takes the lead when the herd travels, determines when to move and the best route, and claims the right to drink first from watering holes and stake out the best location for grazing.

And the stallion? Well it takes all the risks being in the flanks fighting the predators and exposed to the vulnerabilities and is always replaceable. Janata Parivar experiment brings to mind one such herd which neither has a sensible mare nor a rough stallion to guard the flanks and the rear. The third alternative - several of these have been in place for various periods in the recent times - is also not devoid of its chinks in its political armour.

The most vulnerable of all, is the fact that it is a loose coalition of its leaders and perhaps, of their parivars (as in case of Lalu and Mulayam families that got together with a marriage recently), rather than of their followers and people in general. It is proposed not as an experiment in the general interest of the people, but floated more out of survival compulsions.

The new third front is an amalgam of Samajwadi Party of Mulayam Singh, Janata Dal (United) of Nitish Kumar and Sharad Yadav, Rashtriya Janata Dal of Lalu Prasad Yadav, Janata Dal (Secular) of H D Deve Gowda, Indian National Lok Dal of Om Prakash Chautala and Samajwadi Janata Party (Rashtriya) of late Chandra Shekhar and now led by Kamal Morarka. The other day Kamal Morarka spread out a dinner for a few select journalists of New Delhi for a casual banter. It was an opportunity for the journos to probe the Parivar's mind.

After an hour into the conversation, it became obvious that trepidation was the watchword, more than enthusiasm, in the making of the alliance. There was no satisfactory answer to any of the queries as to why and what dictated the necessity of the experiment and how would it survive given the fact that every leader wanted to have an upper hand when the end result emerges, if at all, favourable to them.

What is behind the present experiment other than fear, anxiety and perturbation etc?

Even before they started off, they started talking of the numbers. The ticket-quota confabulations never seem to end satisfactorily with each trying to outwit the other. The Rashtriya Janata Dal demands that seat sharing must rely upon the performance of the parties in the Assembly segments of the previous Lok Sabha elections. The JD (U) has put its foot down arguing that the performance of the last Assembly elections was more relevant.

The much bigger problem would be zeroing in on the candidature for the post of the Chief Minister. While, the JD (U) national president Sharad Yadav wants the issue sorted in the post-poll scenario rather than in the pre-poll arrangement, the RJD leadership is non-committal. Mulayam may not have a problem here but Lalu and Nitish who share the same turf would certainly.

All the while, there is a suspicion that Lalu and Nitish might be running parleys with each other's sworn rivals in the State – Jitan Ram Manjhi and Pappu Yadav. Meanwhile, the Congress surreptitiously arrived on the scene announcing its support to Nitish. No doubt it also prefers a broader coalition of anti-BJP forces, but it clearly is wary of the RJD.

This move of the Congress has made sent warning bells ringing for the RJD leadership, which suspects an ulterior motive behind the Congress move. The RJD is arguing that it was either first or second in 145 Assembly segments in the last Lok Sabha polls and the JD (U) did so, in just 43. The latter continues to maintain that it bagged 115 seats in the previous Assembly elections, and hence, would be appropriate to seek more.

It is, however, said there is pressure on Lalu from his wards that he should not allow the arrangement to collapse as taking on the BJP and its allies without a proper Parivar experiment could be doomed. The Parivar leadership is running out of time, grappling with the issues on hand. It needs to work fast, so that it could approach the Election Commission with its proposal. And the moment they approach the EC seeking a common symbol, the first thing it does is, freezing the present symbols.

Will the Parivar then be able to canvass with its new symbol effectively and in time to register it in the minds of the voters effectively. The SP leadership is too worried about its fate in this regard and is said to be preferring a joint fight - i.e., a fight with their respective symbols intact. This arrangement, however, demands that all the parties arrive at a crystal clear understanding and also campaign for their allies without any inhibitions that could be a real challenge.

With disgruntled elements and dissidents, backstabbers and poachers around the them, this herd needs not just a mare but also a stallion to effectively ward off dangers. The irony is that the constituents of the present Parivar were all once partners in the earlier Janata experiment. With their priorities and egos dominating their concerns, they fell apart.

Going by the present numbers, this new rrangement would have 15 members in the LS and 30 in the Rajya Sabha. Whether they will successfully join hands without their personalized concerns dominating their journey or succumb to the Modi-Amit Shah designs is to be seen. Whatever could be the arrangement, it must be borne in mind that Janata Parivar itself is not a pan-India arrangement because all the constituent parties are highly localized. If any, each of these has to sail with the Congress.

In Bihar, both RJD and JD(S) are on a strong wicket. Election Commission data shows that the BJP and LJP combine got 35.8 per cent votes in the last Lok Sabha elections. The RJD and the Congress Party which fought the elections together got 20.1% and 8.4% of the votes respectively. The JD(U) alone got 15.8% of the votes.

Hence, the vote percentage of JD(U) and RJD combine matches that of the BJP- LJP combine. Further, the RJD, JD (U) and Congress, put together, got more votes than BJP-LJP. Nevertheless, since the RJD, the Congress and the JD(U) could not forge an alliance, their votes did not translate into seats in the Lok Sabha elections.

But, the same changed in the by-elections to 10 assembly seats in August 2014. The JD(U) joined the RJD and the Congress and took on the BJP-LJP combine, to secure 45.6% of the votes polled, to bag six seats. The latter got 37.9%, to win four.