Bhubaneswar: “Modi does not deserve a second term as PM”. This rhetoric of Odisha chief minister and BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik has caused a tremor in national politics in this election season. Political parties aspiring for Delhi throne have started rejigging their post-poll strategies.

With the air is being cleared that Naveen is not going to support a government led by Narendra Modi, strategists of various political parties are now reworking their post-poll plans. It is not only the Congress and Mamata-Mayabati of Third Front, the BJP is also changing its strategy to cope up with the new equation that is going to emerge after May 23.

The strategists of political parties are now considering several possibilities. Which of the two alliances -UPA or NDA- will get majority. If neither of the combination get majority, which of the national parties will emerge as single largest party.

If NDA will get majority, then there would be no huddles for it to form the government. But, if the UPA emerged with majority, then the president of India would take a pause before inviting it to form the government. The president might explore the possibility of inviting the single largest party to form the government. In that case if the BJP is the single largest party, then there would be no loss of time to invite it to form the government. ajority.

Former union finance minister Yashwant Sinha says that the president of India would explore the possibility of installing the BJP government at the Centre. Even if BJP or NDA fail to get the majority, he would use his discretionary power to explore the possibility of inviting the single largest party ignoring the UPA majority.

On being invited to form the government, the BJP would try to cobble up the majority by getting the support of parties like TRS, YSR Congress and BJD those who are claiming neutral to the three formations-NDA, UPA and the Third Front, says Sinha.

The general impression in the national political circle is that Naveen is going to repeat stellar performance both in the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in the state. He would corner most of the 21 LS seats in the state.

Now that Naveen opened up his mind, the Congress has opened it hotline to Naveen Nivas. Congress or for that matter the UPA’s effort is to keep Naveen out of the NDA fold. The Third Front leaders like Mamata Banerjee, Chandrababu Naidu, Chandra Sekhar Reddy would also try to keep Naveen away from NDA and UPA.

Interestingly, BJP would also try to get Naveen in the NDA fold.

In fact, the anti-Modi group in the BJP would try to form a NDA government without Modi to garner the support of Naveen. BJP leaders like Nitin Gadkari and Arun Jaitley are in touch with Naveen.

That Naveen is now saying that no national party would get majority and he would play a key role in the formation of the next government at the Centre is not far off the reality.

By: Aditya Nayak

Sinha’s statements are from his interview to Karam Thapper in TrirangaTV