The ruling Bharat Rashtra Samiti‘s first public meeting in Telangana was held on Wednesday in Khammam town and a host of leaders, including Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal took part in it.

Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann, his Kerala counterpart Pinarayi Vijayan, CPI General Secretary D Raja and Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav attended the BRS meet.

The meeting assumes political significance as it is the first public meeting after the TRS decided to go national by renaming itself as BRS and also because leaders of different opposition parties — BRS, Aam Admi Party (AAP), Samajwadi Party and the Left — would be seen together. The meeting has raised speculations of a third front ahead of the 2024 elections.

What is the Third Front?

In Indian politics, the Third Front refers to various alliances formed by smaller parties at various times since 1989 to provide a third option to Indian voters, challenging the Indian National Congress (INC) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The third front poll route has again gained significance since 2018 (with the Federal Front), and has taken on a renewed breath with KCR’s actions.

National Front (1989–1991)

The authorities of India from 1989 to 1990 was made up of a gaggle of political events referred to as the National Front (NF).

The Janata Dal was in cost of this group. The president of the National Front was N. T. Rama Rao, and its chief was Vishwanath Pratap Singh.

V. P. Singh was the first prime minister of the coalition, and Chandra Shekhar took over after him. Janata Dal and Indian Congress (Socialist) have been in cost of the get together at the nationwide stage.

It was represented in Andhra Pradesh by the Telugu Desam Party, in Tamil Nadu by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, and in Assam by the Asom Gana Parishad. Left Front, which was not a member get together, additionally supported them.

This was the second time India was ever dominated by a coalition, and Singh was prime minister for lower than a yr, from December 2, 1989, to November 10, 1990.

His brief time as prime minister was full of controversies and onerous occasions, equivalent to implementing the suggestions of the Mandal Commission (which mentioned {that a} mounted quota of all jobs in the public sector must be reserved for OBCs) and coping with the Ram Janmabhoomi subject and the rise of militancy in Kashmir.

The Rise and Fall

According to a report by Britannica, he confronted fierce protests throughout northern India after he introduced in August 1990 that the Mandal suggestions could be applied.

V.P. Singh’s critics accused him of pandering to underprivileged ‘lower’ castes for votes, and plenty of members of his personal get together abandoned him over it, most notably Chandra Shekhar, who led a splinter group of JD dissidents out of Singh’s coalition.

V.P. Singh resigned on November 7, 1990, after being defeated in a vote of no confidence by a surprising margin of 356 to 151.

The majority of these voting towards Singh have been members of Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress (I) Party, as Gandhi retained the largest single block of get together devoted in the Lok Sabha; nonetheless, Advani’s BJP supporters additionally lined up towards Singh, the report says.

Shekhar’s Janata Dal (S)—the S stood for Socialist—grew to become the smallest new get together bloc in the Lok Sabha, and he was invited to function Prime Minister by President Ramaswamy Venkataraman earlier than the finish of 1990.

Devi Lal, who had been deposed by Singh in August, was reinstated as deputy prime minister. With fewer than 60 Janata (S) members in the Lok Sabha, the new prime minister’s maintain on energy was tenuous and never anticipated to final any longer than Gandhi and the Congress (I) bloc deemed needed. When the Congress (I) walked out of the Lok Sabha in March 1991, Shekhar was compelled to resign and request that President Venkataraman name new common elections.

United Front

After the 1996 elections, Janata Dal, Samajwadi Party, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Telugu Desam Party, Asom Gana Parishad, All India Indira Congress (Tiwari), Left Front (four events), Tamil Maanila Congress, National Conference, and Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party fashioned a 13 get together United Front (UF).

Between 1996 and 1998, the coalition fashioned two governments in India. H. D. Deve Gowda was the first Janata Dal Prime Minister, and he was succeeded by I. Okay. Gujral after Jyoti Basu declined to turn into Prime Minister. The Indian National Congress, led by Sitaram Kesri, offered exterior help to each governments. The United Front was convened by N. Chandrababu Naidu of the Telugu Desam Party.

How this occurred:

The Indian common election in 1996 produced a splintered outcome. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was invited first to type a authorities after rising as the largest get together with 161 of 543 seats. The provide was accepted, and Atal Bihari Vajpayee was sworn in as Prime Minister.

However, he was unable to safe a majority on the House flooring, and the authorities was overthrown 13 days later. At a gathering of all the different events, the Indian National Congress, with a considerable 140 seats, declined to head the authorities and together with the Communist Party of India (Marxist), agreed to lengthen exterior help to a coalition with the Janata Dal at its head, named the “United Front“.

The Samajwadi Party, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Asom Gana Parishad, Tamil Maanila Congress, Communist Party of India, and Telugu Desam Party have been additionally members of the entrance.

H. D. Deve Gowda, the sitting Chief Minister of Karnataka, was requested to lead the coalition as Prime Minister after V. P. Singh, Jyoti Basu, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Mulayam Singh Yadav, G. Okay. Moopanar, and M. Karunanidhi declined.

His time period ran from June 1, 1996 to April 21, 1997. The Congress withdrew its help for Deva Gowda due to disagreements between the coalition and the Congress.

It agreed to help a brand new authorities led by I. Okay. Gujral, who served as Prime Minister from April 21, 1997 to March 19, 1998. After his authorities fell aside, new elections have been held, and the United Front misplaced energy.

Lesson to Learn?

The Third Front’s frailty grew to become a strong marketing campaign platform for the BJP. Its 1998 authorities lasted solely 13 months, however it returned to energy in 1999 and fashioned the first steady National Democratic Alliance (NDA) authorities, which lasted 5 years, opined political editor Saubhadra Chatterji in a Hindustan Times report.

The BJP gained the belief of allies. The episode additionally established a extra steady ‘coalition dharma’; each the NDA and the two Congress-led United Progressive Alliance governments have been steady as a result of regional events didn’t need frequent elections, the report mentioned.

The UF experiment additionally demonstrated the significance of a bigger, nationwide get together serving as the coalition’s anchor. It additionally marked the consolidation, adopted by the fragmentation, of regional events, Chatterji argued.

In Indian politics, the Janata Dal, which promised to be another to the nationwide events, remained an phantasm, and its varied constituents drifted aside. Following the experiment, the Congress, too, returned to the Nehru-Gandhi household’s management, with Sonia Gandhi in cost.

A report in the Deccan Herald, speculating on the similar cause of why the third fronts failed, mentioned each the United and National Fronts relied closely on exterior help to type governments. Governments fashioned with exterior help are very fragile and weak as a result of the get together offering the exterior help can depart if they’re dissatisfied with how the authorities is run, the report argued.

Both fronts have been a ragtag assortment of regional political events. Because of the giant quantity of regional events, this can be very troublesome to management the regional events. This was evident when the National Front tried to type an absolute majority by enlisting opposition events equivalent to the DMK and AIADM.

On the federal stage, there was a transparent lack of management seen. H.D Devegowda was elected Prime Minister of the United Front after Jyoti Basu, Chandrababu Naidu, and V.P Singh declined the place. The lack of a single chief in these coalitions impacted on the entrance that hoped to type the authorities.

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