Confronting the UPA

George W Bush’s visit can trigger reaction, but the Third Front is not such an easy option

John Philip Delhi

Interacting with a group of mediapersons a few days after the formation of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, former prime Minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh presented a political formulation for the country's future. Central to the theformulation was the exhortation to make use of the defeat of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the rise of the UPA to power in such a manner that the both the ruling space and the opposition space in the country's political firmament remains with secular forces. The 2004 General Elections, he pointed out, had essentially been a fight between the forces of secularism broadly led by the Congress and the forces of communalism led by the BJP and its cohorts in the Sangh Parivar. The fight, the former prime minister contended, needs to be carried forward by marginalising the communal forces in the country's legitimate electoral and political space.

The projection obviously entailed the revival of the concept of the Third Front, but the former National Front prime minister did not specify what practical steps, devices and mechanisms secular forces could use to put his formulation into effect. However, it was broadly indicated that the evolution of the plan in order that secular forces occupy both the ruling as well as the opposition space would be a calibrated exercise that did not jeopardise the UPA government and help the main opposition BJP to bounce back into political prominence.

Singh — the man who had virtually changed the contours of Indian politics and the socio-political balance of power in vast tracts of the country through the advancement of " Mandal politics " in the late 1980s — was apparently working in tandem at that juncture with Harkishan Singh Surjit , veteran leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). The manoeuvres of the Congress, the leader of the UPA, and the CPI(M)-led left parties, on whose "outside  support” the UPA government was dependant for survival, over the next few months gave a broad indication of this association and the tactics developed by it. The Left parties questioned the actions of the government in public forums so strongly that they were acknowledged as the "real opposition". The fact that BJP and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by it were seen to be increasingly ineffective, partly because of the manifold ideological, political and organisational muddles that the BJP got into from time to time, also contributed to this perception.

For the first six months of the UPA government, this thrust and parry exercise seemed to work well, but that was mainly at the level of addressing the concerns of day-to-day governance. But evolving concrete political, organisational shape to the retention of both the ruling and opposition space by secular forces needed to move forward such "day to day issues" and get into macro-dimensions. This, the last 12 months of the UPA have proved, is easier visualised than implemented. Happenings over this period have helped to impart a more tangible shape to a new Third Front but at the same time the earlier premise that this should be developed without passing on political advantage to the BJP has also taken some beatings.

A variety of contentious factors relating to ideology, government policy, perceptions on strategy and above all political ambitions and their pursuit have come up in this period raising doubts about the efficacy of Vishwanath Pratap Singh's formulation. And, developments in the last two months, especially the immediate run-up to the 2006 Budget session of Parliament, even suggested that not only the former prime minister's grand vision but also the UPA government itself would come tumbling down.