How the prospect of power has ended NaMo’s untouchability

Power, it seems, is the only true glue required to attract allies and hold Indian political formations together.

Consider the two statements widely accepted as the truth till some time ago: One is that a BJP led by Narendra Modi will not find allies because he is a hardline communalist. And the other is: alliances and fronts are formed by some kind of ideological affinity.

Both have turned out to be false.

Narendra Modi. PTI

The assumption that NaMo will never be able to find allies is dead. As the Narendra Modi bandwagon has gathered momentum over the last one year, not only has his political untouchability ended, but he has found former enemies lining up to shake hands.

The most recent potential entrant to the NDA is Ram Vilas Paswan of the LJP. The deal may still fall apart at the last minute, but that only proves that politicians are in alliances for power and nothing else. Moreover, NaMo has found allies in Tamil Nadu, in Maharashtra (beyond Shiv Sena), and is likely to find at least one in Andhra Pradesh (Telugu Desam) and Assam.

After the election, if it seems like NaMo is the best bet, some of those who have banded together under the flag called Something Front will make their moves. The BJD in Odisha, the YSR Congress in Andhra, the TRS in Telangana, and assorted Tamil parties will join in at some point – if they saw some power share in it. One can't rule out the entry of the PDP in Kashmir too.

The other proposition — that there are two major political formations in India, one called the UPA, and the other called NDA — also stands disproved.

The truth is the UPA and NDA exist only if power is a realistic prospect. Both are post-poll constructs, driven by arithmetic rather than ideology. The core UPA is just three parties (Congress, NCP and IUML), and the core NDA is also a group of three (BJP, Shiv Sena and Akali Dal). The rest are revolving door partners.

The UPA has lost one ally after another (Trinamool, DMK, MIM, JD-S) as its grip on power melted away. The RLD joined it in 2012 only because Ajit Singh wanted power for a few months before fading away. There is little prospect that Singh will have much bargaining power left after the next elections.

So what does one make of the 11-party front announced by Prakash Karat yesterday (25 February)?

The only explanation is that when it gets lonesome in an election, it is good to meet at the Karat Club and hallucinate over your importance. The only real members of the Karat Club are those who have always been with him — the minuscule leftist parties like RSP and Forward Bloc. The rest are there for the lunch, if only to look at the menu – whether it is Mulayam Singh or Nitish Kumar or J Jayalalithaa of AIADMK. If you have delusions of power on a thin seat-count, it is good to congregate with the other parties of similar size and pretend you can become PM if all else fails. For the record, most of the big parties only sent second-rung nominees, and two did not even come to collect the lunch coupon (BJD and AGP).

The Third Front will energise itself only if neither BJP nor Congress do well in the next elections. It will crumble the minute one of them does well.

The power law in India is simple: only one front exists at any one time - the one that gets a shot at power. Every other front withers away.