Can Sonia lead anti-BJP alliance?

The question is being debated afresh after Nationalist Congress Party, an ally of Congress in the current elections in western state of Maharashtra, made it clear on Monday that "wider acceptability" and not majority of a party would be the yardstick for determining the leader of an anti-BJP alliance.

Pawar, who was expelled from Congress five years ago for raising the foreign origin issue of Sonia and later formed NCP, made the remarks which were apparently aimed at the setting the parameter for deciding the ticklish issue of leadership of the anti-BJP alliance.

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The remarks seem to have injected an element of uncertainty into Sonia's leadership of the anti-BJP alliance, political analysts say.

With exit polls projecting handsome tally of parliamentary seats for NCP in his home state Maharashtra, Pawar, whose prime ministerial ambitions are no secret, along with Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav is likely to emerge as a kingmaker, if not the king, in a hung parliament scenario.

In fact, Pawar and Yadav are likely to be the most courted politicians in the days to come by the two rival political alliances led by BJP and Congress which will be hunting for the number to swell their respective ranks in coalition government formation.It may be pointed out that BJP too had tried to clinch an alliance with Pawar for the parliamentary elections but objections from its other ally Shiv Sena and differences over seat-sharing in Maharashtra had botched that attempt.

For BJP too, roping in Pawar in post-polls scenario can prove to be knotty as only yesterday Shiv Sena had made it clear that it would leave NDA if Pawar's party joins the alliance.

Congress has chosen to react with extreme circumspection to Pawar's remarks Monday on the sensitive leadership issue. Congress spokesman S Jaipal Reddy told reporters here that "Pawar is a stable ally and the issue of leadership of the secular front will be decided in an amicable manner."

Aware of reservations against Sonia's leadership in NCP and in Samajwadi Party because of her foreign origin, Sonia herself did not insist on her leadership of an anti-BJP alliance say before firming up the alliance with NCP for parliamentary elections that the leadership issue of anti-BJP combine could be decided after the polls.

It is in this backdrop that one has to interpret Pawar's emphasis on "wider acceptability" of the leader rather than numerical strength of a party.

Congress cannot be oblivious of the fact that Mulayam Singh Yadav had refused to support Sonia Gandhi's bid to form an alternative government after the fall of Vajpayee ministry in April 1999 in a vote of confidence.

Although relations between Congress and Samajwadi Party have improved since then with Yadav and Gandhi breaking bread at one-to-one meetings, the two failed to come firm up alliance in the current polls in Uttar Pradesh despite repeated pleas by Congress.It made little political sense for Yadav to strike an alliance with Congress because both would have vied for the same vote bank of backward castes and Muslims in Uttar Pradesh. The two parties also accused each other for the failure to sew up an alliance in the state.