Indian Elections
Regional parties may play kingmakers
Opinion polls predict fractured mandate
Pallab Bhattacharya, New Delhi
With the Indian parliamentary elections a little past the halfway mark and all opinion and exit polls forecasting a fractured mandate, political parties have already begun debating the coalition course.If a decisive majority eludes either BJP or Congress or the allies they lead, the focus will shift to a number of regional parties like Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, which are powerful players in the key state of Uttar Pradesh, Nationalist Congress Party, a force to reckon with in Maharashtra, ruling AIADMK and main opposition DMK in Tamil Nadu, Rashtriya Janata Dal, ruling Bihar and Biju Janata Dal, ruling Orissa. Of these, Samajwadi Party led by Mulayam Singh Yadav and BSP led by Mayawati have not forged alliance with either BJP or Congress. The NCP, RJD and DMK are allies of Congress and BJD is a partner of BJP. In the event of a hung parliament, these regional parties are likely to don the roles of kingmakers. Right now, the most talked-about is Samajwadi Party as it is widely tipped to emerge on top in Uttar Pradesh as far as the number of parliamentary seats are concerned. Political signals emanating from both BJP and Congress are aimed at one common target: to woo Mulayam Singh Yadav, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. NCP chief Sharad Pawar, in fact, said yesterday his gut feeling is that neither BJP-led alliance nor Congress would get majority on their own and both Yadav and Mayawati will have a crucial role in government-formation after the elections. Senior Congress leader Arjun Singh appealed to Yadav to withdraw his party's candidates in the central state of Madhya Pradesh, which has 29 seats, to prevent a split in anti-BJP votes. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee recently had said BJP and Samajwadi Party were 'ideologically close' as both believed in nationalism and democratic values. Picking up from where Vajpayee had left off, ruling alliance Convenor and Defence Minister George Fernandez said he and Mulayam were from the same socialist stable and favoured the latter's joining the BJP-led NDA. Fernandez sought to play down Yadav's remark that there were differences between him and Vajpayee and said 'if the PM has agreed on one issue and disagreed on other issues with Yadav, it does not mean that they do not share thoughts'.
| 
