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Congress prefers 'third front' to take the lead

Amberish K Diwanji in New Delhi

The Congress is veering round to the view that it should support a "third front" government from outside rather than lead one with the support of allies.

The party high command believes that leading a government backed by undependable allies will only harm its credibility.

Sources in the Congress said Sonia Gandhi is becoming increasingly reluctant to lead a coalition government with every ally having its own agenda.

The fear is that should the Congress form a government right now, with Sonia Gandhi as prime minister, it will be held accountable for running the country, but will lack the authority needed to implement its agenda. And failure will cost it dearly at the polls, at both the central and state levels.

In fact, the sources said the Congress would prefer an election right away to leading a coalition. It believes that its performance in a snap poll now will be better than after heading a volatile coalition.

The party, therefore, made a declaration today that can only have been aimed at the polls. It said it wants reservations for the scheduled castes and tribes, due to expire in 2000, extended for another 10 years!

Said one Congress official, "Indira Gandhi once said that when reason fails, she trusted her intuition. This is also the case with Sonia Gandhi who is not keen to let the Congress lead a coalition government."

Explaining the rationale, he said, "We are looking at the November assembly elections where we stand a good chance of winning in most states. But if we form the government at the Centre and fail to deliver, our party will suffer at the hustings, which we cannot afford in the long term."

The Congress aims to have a general election along with the November assembly elections, hoping that the pro-Congress sentiment at the state level will help it at the national level too.

The Congress, which is still basking in its thumping victories in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi in November 1998, is confident of doing well in Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Haryana and feels it has an edge in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa as well.

"If the positive outcome of November 1998 merges with November 1999, our party could hope to win most of the big states and secure a majority on its own or with just a couple of allies," the party official quoted earlier explained.

Though the party is still far from winning the two key states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, it is hopeful of making headway there too. In Bihar, it expects to win a few seats with the support of the Rashtriya Janata Dal, whose government was saved by the Congress last month. And in Uttar Pradesh, the party is agog at how it actually managed to hold a modestly successful rally in Sambhalpur, the first in eight years!

According to the sources, the Congress strategy now is to wait for Jayalalitha to withdraw the support of her 18 MPs. It is confident that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition will not be able to win a vote of confidence in the Lok Sabha.

As the second largest party in the Lok Sabha, it will then await an invitation from the President to try and form a government. The Congress will then take the stand that it will form the government on condition that other 'secular' parties give it "unconditional support from outside".

The party expects to have this condition rejected. The All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the Rashtriya Loktantrik Morcha, and others have already insisted that there should be a coalition government led by the Congress.

In the circumstances, the Congress will ask the "third front" parties to form the government and promise it support from outside. The Congress can thus implement its agenda while not being responsible for the government's shortcomings.

In another development, the Congress president has formed a panel to debate its stand. According to the sources, the members are 'political spokesman' Arjun Singh, chief whip P J Kurien, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sharad Pawar, P Shivshankar, spokesman Ajit Jogi, general secretaries Sushil Kumar Shinde and Pranab Mukherjee, and Gandhi's political adviser R D Pradhan. It is not known whether Manmohan Singh, leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, is part of the panel.

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