Congress prepares for fresh elections

New Delhi: The ruling Congress party is working on two fronts simultaneously in view of the fluid political situation.

Though it has managed to buy peace with the Left Front by agreeing to set up a political mechanism to review threadbare the impact of the contentious Indo-US nuclear deal, the ruling party is preparing for fresh polls as it understands the truce with the Left may just be temporary.

Results of opinion polls carried out by the media have given the party the hope of emerging far more stronger if fresh elections become imminent since the government is no mood to pause implementation of the nuclear deal and chances of the Left compromising on its core anti-American ideology are remote.

"At the most we can only put on hold the next step towards implementation of the deal till November. And that suits us fine," a central office bearer of the Congress party said.

Opinion polls conducted by the NDTV news channel and The Week newsmagazine have come out with contrasting predictions.

While the NTDV has predicted the number of Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) will go up from the existing 212 lawmakers to 232 in the event of fresh polls were held now, The Week predicted UPA's stock will go down as it would manage to win between 172 and 192 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha.

Likewise, the predictions on the fate of its arch-rival the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) also vary with the NTDV giving it 158 seats as against its existing strength of 180, The Week projects it to be between 178 and 198.

Both are, however, unanimous with varying degrees that the stock of the Left Front would go down and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) will emerge a power to reckon with.

Upbeat

As against the existing strength of 64, NDTV has predicted 39 seats for the Left while The Week has projected between 38 and 48 seats for it.

The BSP of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati, which won just 18 seats in the 2004 general elections, will win 42 seats according to NDTV while The Week has projected between 45 and 55 seats for it.

"With a good agricultural harvest following a normal monsoon predicted fall in prices of essential commodities will further create favourable atmosphere for us. Our tally is bound to cross at least 250 seats as per our internal assessment," the Congress leader said.

Expectedly, no major party is keen on fresh polls at this stage despite acknowledging that it is very much on the horizon. The Congress party has plans of dissolving the Lok Sabha towards the end of this year and holding polls towards April-May next year.

The BSP on the other hand is coaxing the Congress to adopt bold approach and go for fresh polls to get rid of the Left, whose support is crucial for the survival of the UPA government.

The BSP is confident of winning more than 50 seats out of 80 Lok Sabha seats from Uttar Pradesh and aspires to play a leading role in the national politics.

Mayawati has already declared her ambitions in this regard after her party swept the Assembly polls in the state in May.

Congress party sources say they are ready to bite the BSP's bait than continue being arm twisted by the Marxists. Any party or alliance will have to win at least 272 seats to get the simple majority and the UPA-BSP combine are confident of crossing this mark.

United Progressive Alliance 212 232 172-192

National Democratic Alliance 180 158 178-198

Left Front 64 39 38-48

Bahujan Samaj Party 18 42 45-55