:: Arun Nehru

Watch UP and Bihar for coalition trends

By Arun Nehru

Apr 19 : As things stand now, I see the Congress emerging as the single largest party in the Lok Sabha polls with 155, seats followed by the BJP with 139 seats and the Left dropping to 36 seats in the final tally.

My prediction is that the third or fourth fronts are negotiation structures for the regional parties for better "portfolios" after the elections. The Congress, even with a minimum of 150 seats must be the favorites to lead the coalition in the 50th Lok Sabha.

I am giving the final charts for the elections and, as I had indicated over two months ago, the variation is less than five per cent from the original estimates. There will be changes as four cornered fights in over 100 seats can produce surprise winners in a few seats and this probability is very high in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

The other major factor can be the effect of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) vote in states other than Uttar Pradesh on the Congress vote.

As I had predicted last week, small groups within these groups will combine together and form larger groups (SP/RJD/LJP can team up with NCP/Left/BJD). But I don’t think we should take all this too seriously as "numbers" will determine the final stand each party will take.

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar takes a step forward as he addresses public meetings with the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and Left in Orissa and then takes two steps back as he joins Congress president Sonia Gandhi in Maharashtra.

There is nothing wrong in this as every party and every individual strives for political power and relevance, but it will not be easy to form and hold together a group of regional parties whose sole intention is to share power at the Centre.

Mr Pawar is aware of this and the group will have little relevance unless they can decide on a common leader. Will All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) chief J. Jayalalithaa or the BSP’s Mayawati accept Mr Pawar or each other as the Prime Minister?

There is no contradiction that the NCP wants Mr Pawar as the future Prime Minister but Mr Pawar himself might want Dr Manmohan Singh for the top job. Coalition politics has been around for 20 years and there is no shortage of skilful negotiators in all the parties for the final outcome.

As things stand, the 2009 general elections could well show a decline in the number of seats won by the Left and the SP/RJD in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. There is still a month to go and after the first two rounds trends can harden in the last stretch.

The Congress may gain further and the BJP may hold their numbers. So are Uttar Pradesh and Bihar going to indicate a trend for the future of coalition politics? All regional groups want to share power at the Centre and in the current situation each one would like to get a prize portfolio.

There is a clear pattern emerging in 2009, as we see the SP/RJD/LJP declining in numbers in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. From their current numbers of 65 seats they can drop to 35-40 seats. The seats they lose will go to the BSP/Congress in Uttar Pradesh and to the Janata Dal-United (JD-U) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Bihar.

The Left will drop from 65 seats to 35-40 seats and the gains will be for the Trinamul Congress in West Bengal and the Congress in Kerala. I feel that the trends are consolidating towards the Congress and the BJP in the future and it is just a matter of time when the BSP (vote share can be 10 per cent in the future) will consider it expedient to ally with either party for a strategic alliance.

We may not be heading for a two-party system but coalition patterns are changing and there is a lesson in the verdicts anticipated in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

The war of words in the election arena in the past week is disappointing. The incident in Pilibhit was sad and unnecessary, but how does one justify the abusive words uttered by former Bihar chief minister Rabri Devi and the "bulldozer" statement by Union minister Lalu Prasad Yadav. We see shoes flying around, we see tears being shed — all this is a sad reflection on politics.

We must dwell on the positives and ignore these political "accidents". The advantage is that we may well have a stable government and a strong opposition and there will be continuity both in foreign affairs and in economic policy.

There was little to choose between the NDA/UPA on these two critical issues and this will continue in 2009.

Arun Nehru is a former Union Minister