Amorphous Alliance

Twelve years after the fall of the United Front government, which was a coalition of regional parties (the Communist Party of India being the only national party in that gov-ernment), a similar conglomeration of regional and left parties has forged a non-Congress, non-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) pre-electoral seat sharing arrangement before the 15th Lok Sabha elections.

Broadly termed the “third front”, the binding factor of the parties in this amorphous alliance is their anti-Congress and anti-BJP stance. While the left constituents have a definite alternative socio-economic and foreign policy agenda, the other parties in the alliance do not share any common agenda but are, because of local political equations, part of the coalition only since they stand opposed to the two larger national parties. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) – the party of dalit leadership – has been non-committal about its relationship with the third front.