Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and BSP supreme Mayawati has reportedly revealed her ambition to be the prime ministerial candidate of the newly constituted Third Front. In fact, she had conveyed her desire on the very day of the official launch of the Third Front on March 11 through Satish Chandra Mishra, her second-in-command and party’s general secretary.
With the media reports that TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu and JD (S) founder H D Deve Gowda have pulled out their names from the race, chances are very much there for Mayawati as no other candidates stand before her.
Following the saying “strike while iron is hot”, the BSP supreme even set a deadline for the finalisation of the name that will be projected as the Third Front’s prime ministerial candidate.
March 15, which is also the birth anniversary of the BSP founder Kanshi Ram, is the day when the Third Front leaders will meet at a dinner in Lucknow to be hosted by Mayawati to make consensus on the nominee for the top slot.
Mayawati has already hinted to count her in the Third Front only if the party unanimously projects her prime ministerial nominee and fight elections under her name. Two days ago on March 11 when the Third Front — an alternative to the two national parties-Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party — officially launched at Tumkur in Bangalore, the UP chief minister gave the launch rally a miss and instead sent her confidant and general secretary S C Mishra with a clear message in such words: “It is the aim of the BSP to make Mayawati prime minister.”
But the way to the top seat is not so easy as it looks and the dinner-summit more or less may turn into a battlefield. One of the constituents of the Third Front, Communist Party of India (CPI) general secretary A B Bardhan told reporters on Friday: “The Third Front will not project anyone as its prime ministerial candidate during electioneering.” The question of PM would be taken into consideration only after the elections, he added.
Nine political parties from across India had taken part at the Third Front’s launch rally in Tumkur, near Bangalore, including the founder Janata Dal-Secular, CPM, CPI, Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), Forward Bloc, Telugu Desam Party (TDP), AIADMK, Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) and last but not the least — the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).
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