Will Mulayam Singh Yadav have the last laugh post-polls?

NEW DELHI: Two opinion polls on the likely results if the general elections were to be held now have indicated that the Congress would lose ground while the main opposition BJP would not gain sufficiently, throwing the contest wide open to a host of possibilities, including that of a ragtag group of regional players getting together.

So, will SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, who was derided when he sought to prop up a non-Congress, non-BJP front a few months ago, have the last laugh? To be sure, the SP is leading over its UP rival BSP in the surveys by both TimesNow-CVoter and Hindu-CNN-IBN-CSDS, making Yadav a potential contender for leading an alternative front.

But the surveys have also shown the other regional leaders such as J Jayalalithaa, Mamata Banerjee, Nitish Kumar and Navin Patnaik winning enough seats to emerge as crucial players.

The history of the United Front regimes led by HD Deve Gowda and IK Gujral — after Yadav and Lalu Prasad cancelled each other’s prime ministerial chances, just as M Karunanidhi and GK Moopanar undid each other — shows, however, that powerful regional leaders are more than capable of undercutting each other. “The surveys have clearly driven home the point that both Congress and BJP have to pull up their socks to remain in the reckoning,” BJP’s Ravi Shankar Prasad said, “Both surveys have shown Congress is clearly and fast losing ground across the country.

It shows BJP is emerging as the clear alternative.” Congress’ Abhishek Singhvi, however, drew comfort in the numbers, saying, “Assuming these surveys are correct, it only shows even with 10 years of incumbency burden of the UPA, Modi-led BJP is just 15 seats ahead of Congress. It speaks more about the limitation of the pretender than Congress. And everybody knows who the regional parties will find it easy and safe to support compared to the Modi-led BJP and Modi-led NDA.”

A major point of difference in the two surveys is with respect to UP, where the Hindu-CNN-IBNCSDS survey gives BJP 29-33 seats while the TimesNow survey gives the party just 12 seats.

“I think the opinion surveys broadly indicate the emerging political trends even though they may not be very accurate on all details,” said political commentator Kumar Ketkar, a veteran analyst of opinion polls, “In a vast country like India where we have nearly 90 crore voters, it will be difficult to do opinion polls with a matching sample data. Yet, over the years I have learnt to be soft towards opinion polls.”

Modi’s rivals say that even at the higher end of the scale he may not be able to attract allies to BJP. They say while Congress formed the government in 2004 when it won just 141 seats, BJP under Modi will need more seats than it did under the far more conciliatory Atal Bihari Vajpayee, whose popularity helped the BJP win 180 and 181 seats in the 1998 and 1999 polls.