Will the extended UPA pip NDA to the post?

United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi hosted a dinner for the opposition parties in New Delhi, on March 13 to explore various possibilities of forging a grand alliance of the regional parties led by the Congress in the Lok Sabha Elections in 2019. The move assumes importance in the wake of the stunning victory of the SP candidates in the bye-elections to the two Lok Sabha seats in UP as well as the BJP victory in Tripura and its alliances with regional parties in the north-eastern states for formation of governments in these states.

The outcome of the dinner diplomacy is not yet known, but it is obvious that Sonia Gandhi is determined to halt the BJP juggernaut by roping in new parties into the fold of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) to present an alternative to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The fact that Sonia has hinted at the possibility of a leader outside of the Nehru-Gandhi clan leading the Congress party in future assumes importance in this regard.

If Sonia hopes to sew up a grand alliance with leaders such as Mamta Banerjee of the Trinamool Congress, Mayawati of the BahujanSamaj Party, K Chandrasekhar Rao of Telangana RashtraSamithi, N Chandra Babu Naidu of the Telugu Desam Party, Sharad Pawar of the Nationalist Congress Party, Akhilesh Yadav of Samajwadi Party and Lalu Prasad Yadav of the Bharatiya Janata Dal, it is definitely going to be an uphill task. Some of these leaders have volatile temperaments and are unpredictable.Quite a few of them also think of themselves as prime ministerial candidate! Leading a pack of such motley group of leaders having their own bloated egos and queer temperaments makes it a daunting task indeed. The Congress led by Rahul Gandhi may not be acceptable to some of these leaders as they do not consider Rahul as measuring up to the task of leading the party and the country. But the Congress, being a national party, cannot be expected to play second fiddle to the regional entities nor would itgive up its claim to the leadershipof the grand alliance.

In any case, even if such an extended UPA is voted to power at the Centre in 2019, the stability of the government would be tenuous as political ambitions of these regional satraps may overwhelm their better judgement and destabilise the government. Only if the Congress turns out to be the largest single party with 150-200 Lok Sabha seats will the alliance partners fall in line and dare not destabilise the government.