The wanna be Prime Ministers

What's common between H D Deve Gowda, Prakash Karat, Chandrababu Naidu, Mayawati and J Jayalalitha? Well all of them fancy their chances of becoming the 18th Prime Minister of India. The upcoming General Elections is slowly becoming one of most unpredictable ones in the recent history and might throw surprising results. Regional parties thrive on such unpredictability.

Janata Dal-Secular, Communist Party of India-Marxist, Communist Party of India, Revolutionary Socialist Party, Forward Bloc, Telugu Desam Party, AIADMK, Telangana Rashtra Samiti and the Bahujan Samaj Party have come together and formed what is known as the Third Front (non-NDA and non-UPA) to bring in much needed stability to the nation.

Let us assume a scenario in which the Third Front emerges ahead of the Congress led UPA and BJP led NDA. Now the question arises who becomes the Prime Minister? The solution lies in how we played cricket in our childhood. Whoever brings the bat becomes the captain and thus whoever brings in the maximum number of seats to the Parliament becomes the Prime Minister.

There is however a dangerous side to such a coalition with so many small parties. The person helming the government will be under tremendous pressure as breaking such a coalition will be very easy. Also the fact that the castists, the leftists and the regionalists come together policy formation in such a government might be tougher than sending a man to the moon.

The people of the country have a bitter experience with the United Front government (1996-1998). The coalition then comprised of most of the parties which have formed the Third Front this time. Such coalitions raise doubts over their stability as there is no clear leader unlike the NDA or the UPA. Most of the parties in such a coalition are divided by cast equation and language.

Both the BJP and Congress seem to be finding it tough to keep their allies together who are not missing any opportunity to blackmail them. In a Third Front lead scenario many of these allies might switch sides to grab a share of power at the Centre. Indian Democracy seems to going through its toughest election ever and a feeling of uncertainty looms over the nation.