Telugu Desam Party supremo Chandrababu Naidu is dreaming of playing a key role in the national politics by building a third front. The third front, an alternative to the Congress-led UPA and the BJP-led NDA, is seen as potential force to form the next government. The front is likely to consist of the regional parties. Though Telangana Rastra Samithi president and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao had mooted the idea of floating a third front, the idea now runs around Chandrababu Naidu who is seen as better option than Chandrasekhar Rao.
The Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party have already tied-up with the Congress and the unity was seen in the recent by-elections in Uttar Pradesh where they have defeated the BJP. This arrangement is likely to continue for the 2019 elections, if one goes by the success they have witnessed in the by-election. Nationalist Congress Party’s Sharad Pawar in Maharastra and Trinamool Congress party’s Mamata Benerji in West Bengal too are soft towards the Congress and may not say no to Rahul Gandhi’s leadership.
The DMK in Tamil Nadu and JanataDal (Secular) in Karnataka are already in the Congress bag and may not prefer an alternative to the Congress, giving leadership to Chandrababu Naidu. The Janata Dal (Secular) will not take the trouble of breaking alliance with the Congress at the cost of its power to provide platform for Chandrababu Naidu to play in the national level. Leaders like Sharad Yadav prefers to the Congress –led alliance and has no reason to go against the Congress.
In the NDA kitty, two parties, Telugu Desam Party and the Shiv Sena, have already walked out from the BJP, while others may not differ at this point of time. Ram Vilas Paswan and others are comfortable with the NDA and there is no reason for them to look for Chandrababu Naidu to form the alternative front.
United AP has 42 MP seats. TDP was able to play national role when it got more than 30 MP seats. Now, residual AP have 25 MP seats and Telangana with 17 MP seats. Both states became weak after bifurcation in terms of representations in Parliament. We are just an another small state like Orissa. In both the states, single party may get 15 to 20 seats. With this smaller representation, difficult to play a key role in Centre. But, both CBN and KCR want to play a key role in national politics. Their thought process is far from realty.