Is a third front govt supported by Congress an option?

Question remains if the alliance will get the numbers and if Congress will support it

Although individually they might not do so well, all parties that are opposed to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are hoping the strength of the Congress will go down below 150 seats in a 545 member house. This will enable them to browbeat the Congress and form a third front government, with the Congress supporting the front from the outside. It would also translate into one of the third front leaders becoming the Prime Minister.

So Sharad Pawar as PM though his party might get only 19 seats to contest in Maharashtra? Hope springs eternal in the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) breast. While quarelling with their ally - the Congress - in Maharashtra about seat-sharing in the Lok Sabha elections, NCP simultaneously attended the Third Front anti-communalism convention yesterday. Read that with Sharad Pawar's blunt assertion that he will not work with Rahul Gandhi if he becomes Prime Minister, and you have him as a candidate for the top job.

Rag tag is often the adjective that precedes the third front. The Left parties (dominated by the CPI-M) have run a coalition based on a common minimum programme for 30 years in Bengal. It has been a coalition of the like-minded, and for that reason, easier to run and by no stretch of imagination can be called rag-tag. A section of the Left was a participant in the central government in 1998-99.

The point is a third front government supported by the Congress may not be as terrible a disaster for the country as we imagine. After all, over ten years, despite being the dominant partner, the Congress had to replace the Home Minister in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, had little or no influence over the conduct of one of its MPs in the run up to the Commonwealth Games, and could not keep the DMK in check in Sanchar Bhavan.

The question is whether the anti-communalism, anti-BJP alliance will be able to get the numbers; and whether the Congress will be ready to help form such an alliance. There is still uncertainty on both counts. About the first, no one can say. About the second, there is deep division in the party. Younger people and those who have seen the Congress's past performance in coalitions feel the Congress should just sit in the opposition if it does not get the mandate to rule. But those who see the rising Modi tide feel India must form an anti-Modi government at any cost, even if it means subordinating the Congress's political interest.

This is the strand of politics that has to be watched.