THREE MUSKETEERS FORM THE FOURTH FRONT TO NEGOTIATE THEIR HIDDEN DESIRE.

Three musketeers form the fourth front to negotiate their hidden desire. What is politics and who are the politician? Without thinking twice and pondering over the matter it can be said that politics is something described as an opportunist game. And the distinct creature on the earth, which has never missed the chance to capitalize it over their rivals when subjected to such an opportunity, is known as a politician. They may take any path, sometimes unprecedented, to achieve this. Generally, they compel others to follow in but at times they try the easy route of deceiving which is in vogue as the elections are around the corner. In the Indian political context this phenomenon is underlined and can be understandable as every second person thrives to put others behind him and doesn’t endeavor to move ahead himself. They make decisive changes at the last moment so that their rivals don’t get time to plan their strategy. But this habit of last minute hiccups sometimes forces their friends to doubt their intentions. Same is the case with Lalu Prasad Yadav, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Ramvilas Paswan. They joined hands to defeat their rivals in the Hindi belt. They have a common rival in Bharatiya Janata Party whereas; they are fighting with their individual rivals in the form of JD (U) in Bihar and BSP in Uttar Pradesh. Paswan has a rival in both of them. His rivalry with JD (U) is because of home turf while he is against BSP because of loosing ground on the dalit cause. The coming together of the three reminds the days of JP movement. It may be the loyalties of those days that may have prompted them to think about this poll pact. However, their aligning into a fourth front is definitely not be mistaken as their affection for each other. Their loyalty towards each other is just because of the fact that their objective is similar if not same. Things that appear as simple may be exactly the opposite because ye politics hai mere yaar…. In this election its almost clear that a single party, may be a single coalition too, is not going to get the majority i.e. there is a very fair chance for smaller parties to struck a deal on their terms and conditions. Also, this is a festive season for the players who had an embedded fantasy of holding the key ministries or even the top job. Both the two major coalitions NDA and UPA will leave no room to get their numbers corrected but if they fail, will succumb to any demand of the regional players to stop the other from holding the office. This election is a power differentiator as none of the parties is confident of their performance and hence the power will be divided into different blocks. The other end of the ropes will be tied with the regional parties and this very fact is known to the three leaders of the so called fourth front, and they want this once in a lifetime opportunity to yield maximum in their favor. It’s quite clear that Paswan and Lalu Yadav had decided their coming together and leaving congress out of the alignment, long back but accepted it only recently to avoid any misunderstanding with their other partners. These three leaders are smart, outspoken, and don’t hesitate to let their feeling known to their partners. They are well aware that the UPA needs their backing to form the government. This is a give and take world politics and no social service. It’s an industry which needs tremendous expertise which they probably have in them because of their long stint as politicians spread over decades. Once you make a mistake and you have to suffer for the rest of your stint as a politician. Hence, if they support congress there has to be something substantial in return to satisfy their demands. It would be interesting to watch what they offer to UPA after the results are out. However, they have already maintained that Manmohan Singh will be their Prime Minister candidate and their loyalty will always remain with the UPA but have maintained a pin drop silence about the other key ministries like Home, Defense and Railways. No need to say that Lalu Yadav has a hidden desire for ministry of home affairs which he had almost bagged the last time and Paswan lost the railways to Lalu. Also this time individually they are all weak in their respective regions as compared to earlier which may hinder their prospects this time. So they have decided to go as a team for the 134 seats of U.P., Bihar, and Jharkhand and their primary objective is the corner the maximum of it so as to project themselves in a better position for the post poll negotiation.