Tags:
Journalism of Courage
The latest incarnation of the Third Front continues to strive to find ways and means to illustrate the irrelevance of its founding concept. Its decision on Monday to seek the re-election of Dr Abdul Kalam as president of India is bizarre not because of his credentials. It is so because he had made it explicit that he would not find it dignified to seek re-election without a broad enough consensus on his candidature. Only one of two outcomes, therefore, could possibly accrue from the announcement by J. Jayalalithaa8217;s statement on behalf of the Front. One, Dr Kalam would decline, and the battle would remain pitched between the NDA and the UPA. Two, a large enough bloc from within the UPA and the NDA would shift allegiance to Kalam.
Either way, the Third Front 8212; most unimaginatively named the United National Progressive Alliance 8212; would illustrate the impossibility of being a constructive force in national politics by maintaining equidistance from the UPA and NDA. Even their chosen name borrows heavily from the two national alliances. We understand the benefits Jayalalithaa and her band of out-of-power chief ministers see in forming the alliance. For reasons of electoral combat in their respective states, they cannot be part of the ruling alliance of the moment. To maximise their chances in future electoral chances, they don8217;t want to share oppositional space with the national Opposition. The 8220;third alternative8221;, in all its variations since 1989, has played to these two dynamics.
