Third Front's resurgence in quest for JPC slot

United we stand, divided we fall — the proverb has found importance with the non-NDA, non-UPA parties or the earstwhile Third Front.

Desperate to find a place in the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on 2G, nine parties have decided to appear before Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar with an appeal: Treat us like one single unit.

The nine parties — J Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK, Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam, Naveen Patnaik’s BJD, Ajit Singh’s RLD, H D Deve Gowda’s JD(S), CPI(M), CPI, RSP and the Forward Bloc – have a strength of 61 MPs in Lok Sabha.

AIADMK leader in Lok Sabha M Thambidurai is likely to meet Kumar tomorrow representing the group, with a memorandum seeking unified status while counting numbers for JPC seats. Thambidurai wanted to give it on Monday, but could not manage signatures of all the party leaders.

Basudeb Acharia of the CPI(M) said: “If the nine parties, which have a collective strength of 61 MPs in Lok Sabha are treated as a bloc, then we can even get up to three members in the JPC.”

If these parties are considered in their individual capacity, they will get just one seat among themselves, in case the JPC is constituted as a 30-member committee.

According to sources in the Third Front, this idea was mooted by the AIADMK, as it is desperate for a berth in the JPC that will investigate the dealings of former telecom minister A Raja — a nominee of arch rival DMK in the UPA Cabinet.

Meanwhile, the four Left parties, having 24 MPs in this Lok Sabha (down from 61 in the last Lok Sabha), have also moved the government and the Speaker to treat them as a united bloc. This “club 24” within the “club 61” will ensure at least one berth for the Left even if the Speaker rejects the appeal of the nine-party united front.

The Biju Janta Dal and the CPI are trying to secure the second and the third slot for themselves. CPI’s Gurudas Dasgupta had earlier been part of the JPC on the stock market scam and wants to be a member of this JPC as well.

Acharia said from the first day of the present Lok Sabha, Left parties have acted as a bloc in the House. After their dwindled strength in this Lok Sabha, the Left found it prudent to keep their stock together to extract fringe benefits from the House.

“As we had asked the Speaker to treat us like one bloc, CPI’s Gurudas Dasgupta got a seat in the second row of the House. Otherwise he was pushed back to the fourth row. The CPI(M) sacrificed one of its seats in the second row to accommodate Dasgupta,” said Acharia.

This will also give the ‘Third Front’ an opportunity to prove its existence as a separate entity, even though they had to join hands with the BJP-led NDA on almost every issue.