Alliance woes continue, with more joining the anti-Congress bandwagon

New Delhi, Oct 8: INLD Chief and Jat strongman, Om Praskash Chautala was the latest to join the bandwagon, advising the Congress on how to form alliances. While he batted for opposition unity, he also said that he wants BSP supremo, Mayawati to become the Prime Minister.

On the other RLD leader, Jayant Chaudhary, while vouching for a joint opposition told the
Congress to be most accommodating and give respect and support to the smaller parties for a true rainbow coalition.

This development comes in the wake of the BSP, SP and CPM making it clear that it would not have anything to do with the Congress in the upcoming assembly elections being held in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Mizoram and Telangana.

Chaudhary went on to say that the Congress is the largest opposition party in Parliament. It will have to be most accommodating and give respect to the smaller parties for a true rainbow coalition to emerge. He also said to increase the size of the pie, all partners would need to not stress on individual sizes.

The trouble fo the Congress began with the Mayawati led, BSP deciding to stay away from the Congress in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. The Samajwadi Party too has said that it will not contest with the Congress in Madhya Pradesh.

Akhilesh Yadav, former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh and SP chief said that he would not wait any longer for the Congress to take a call on the alliance. He however said that he would surely speak with the BSP on the alliance.

For how long do we wait, he asked while adding that it was no longer feasible to go along with the Congress. He revealed that the SP was in talks with the Gondwana Gantantra Party.

On the other hand the CPM said that it will not contest along with the Congress in all the five states. This means that there would be no Congress-CPM alliance in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram.

The Central Committee of the CPM endorsed the decision to be part of the seven party alliance in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh and the Bahujan Left Front in Telangana. Left partner CPI is part of an alliance comprising the Congress, TDP and the Telangana Jana Samiti in the souther state.

The CPM, CPI, Samajwadi Party, JD(S), CPI(ML), RLD and Marxist-Communist Party of India (MCPI) have joined hands to form Rajasthan Democratic Front to fight the elections there.

In MP and Chhattisgarh, too, CPM will try to enter into an understanding with smaller parties and be part of a non-Congress alliance. While there has been a demand in the party for an understanding with the Congress to prevent the division of votes, the central committee has not accepted this view.