The pre-poll alliances in five states — West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Bihar — will be crucial and will decide who rules Delhi.
The Congress is ruling the Centre since 2004 because of its tactical alliances in these states where the support base of national parties is eroding.
Interestingly, even the NDA came to power at the Centre in 1998-99 due to these states and ruled Delhi till 2004. The Left, Trinamul Congress, Dravidian parties, the TDP, NCP, Shiv Sena, Samata Party/Janata Dal and the RJD have played key roles in stabilising coalition governments at the Centre during the last 17 years.
The Congress and the BJP are not going alone in the coming Lok Sabha elections despite having charismatic leaders for the simple reason that these parties are not going to win 272 seats on their own.
The Congress has already constituted a six-member sub-group on pre-poll alliances under the chairmanship of Mr A.K. Antony while the BJP has no option but to go with the Shiromani Akali Dal and the Shiv Sena.
The BJP has not been able to win friends so far. It expects that regional parties would come once it touches 200 seat mark on its own. But the ground reality is that the saffron party lacks notable presence in West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and has not been a major player in Maharashtra and Bihar. Besides, its performance in Karnataka is not expected to be good due to the split.
The BJP expanded in Bihar with the help of Mr Nitish Kumar and not on its Hindutva or governance cards. Now, it is daring him to quit the NDA if he does not toe the BJP line on the leadership (Narendra Modi) issue. It had also tried to ignore the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra after realising that MNS chief Raj Thackeray would be more useful than Mr Uddhav Thackeray.
The political scene in Maharashtra has become interesting because the Congress chief minister Prithviraj Chavan’s main objective is to weaken the ally NCP and the BJP is preparing to go with Raj Thackeray at an “appropriate” time.