Currently the third front have the following members:
Left parties:
CPM
CPI
Revolutionary Socialist Party
Forward Bloc
Others:
AIADMK
Janata Dal(Secular)
SP
JD(U)
BJD
Another similarity and probably the most striking one is that in spite of so many differences, they are likely to support the Congress Party and not the Bhartiya Janata Party.
After BJP’s forced exodus from the Bihar government, Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) is thriving on the unconditional support by the Congress Party although Congress has chosen RJD+LJP alliance as partners in Bihar and not JD(U).
Mulayam Singh, one of the prominent faces of the Third front has been an old UPA supporter.
Even Deve Gowda’s Janata Dal (S) is an outside protector of the UPA.
CPI(M) was a supporter of UPA, the only difference being the differences over the Indo-US nuclear deal which led to it walking out of the alliance in 2008. But yes, given a choice, they would team up with Congress rather than BJP which are the polar opposites of them in terms of political ideology.
AIADMK, the old allies of BJP have openly allied with CPI(M). So there is nothing much to assume here. And BJD another old ally of BJP will have to go with the flow of the alliance.
The Third front may claim to be anti Congress and anti BJP but in reality they are more anti BJP than anti congress. And taking Aam Aadmi Party into consideration(which again is thriving on the ‘outside’ support of Congress party) the equation for BJP looks even more complex.
Tough road for Narendra Modi and BJP ahead. The voters more or less want to vote him to power, the allies can be game changers.
With inputs from a FirstPost article.
Picture courtesy: – Janokti.com