NEW DELHI: A day ahead of “verdict 2009”, major political parties are keeping their fingers crossed. The national capital is abuzz with political parties reaching out for alignments and realignments based on strategic calculations and political mathematics.
The picture — fairly blurred and confusing till yesterday — would become clear today when the counting of votes begins. Nevertheless, there are limited chances of either the Congress party or Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) gaining a decisive lead. The picture became more complicated yesterday with a few parties categorically laying out that they prefer being with neither the Congress nor the BJP.
Interestingly, while the BJP headquarters wore a deserted look yesterday afternoon with its leaders locked in meetings at the residence of party leader L.K. Advani, the Congress office was abuzz with a battery of reporters.
There were lower rung officials crunching numbers at the BJP office on Ashoka Road while their leaders were thrashing out strategies with the elections promising to throw up a hung Parliament.
“We are 200 percent sure that we will form the government and not sit in opposition,” BJP’s youth wing leader P.N. Pathak said, putting up a brave face, though several exit polls have predicted that the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) has an edge.
The bookstore at the BJP office, which claimed to have seen brisk sales in the run-up to the elections, was deserted. At the Congress office at 24 Akbar Road, there was a sense of optimism among the party supporters.
A Congress worker, hanging around at the party office, said: “I am confident we will win because we take people along with us.” Later, speaking to reporters, senior party leader Kapil Sibal also expressed confidence of a Congress victory.
Though Congress is hopeful of gathering more allies than BJP, its present allies have made it clear that they will decide the government, if the UPA fails to get a majority. “We will not support BJP at any cost to form a government and will make all efforts to ensure that a secular government is formed,” Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) chief Ram Vilas Paswan said.
“If UPA can get majority, there will be no problem. The other scenario is that UPA does not get majority. In that situation, we three parties in the Fourth Front would jointly take a decision on methodology of forming a secular government,” he said.
The Fourth Front includes LJP, Samajwadi Party (SP) and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). With Congress having failed to reach a seat-sharing agreement with these parties in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, it fought the elections on its own in these two states, while they fought “unitedly,” Paswan said. They aim to play a major role as a bloc in forming the next government.
