By Mahuya Santra
It has no political history in its possession. No veteran politician is its member. It has no political agenda like other traditional political parties. But justifying its name in true sense this one- year- old Aam Admi Party put more than a century old Indian National Congress (Congress) and main opposition party of the country, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in deep political soup. When the general public seems to have been immunised with an increasingly corrupt political system, the sterling performance of Aam Admi Party- with its anti- corruption agenda changed the rule of the game in Indian politics. In Delhi, Assembly poll emergence of Aam Admi Party as formidable opponent of two major political parties in India – Congress and BJP indicated that electorate are no longer in the mood of accepting political agenda which ultimately serves the vested interest of politicians and industrialists or the influential. Rather they want politicians to dedicate their clean politics in favour of Aam Admi only. Aam Admi means common man.
Conquest of Aam Admi Party is not only considered to be the indicator of the changing India but also the rise of regional political parties in India. Regional parties are predicted to play a pivotal role in the formation of the next government of India following 2014 LokSabha election.
Over the last fifteen years it was found that neither Congress nor BJP could bag the single majority party status in the Parliament. So being the largest party, BJP had to form National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in 1999 and Congress, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) in 2004 and 2009 with the help of the regional parties, to come into power at the centre. Mamata Banerjee’s Trinmool Congress of Eastern India was the second largest partner of UPA 2 government and Karunanidhi’s DMK party of South India was the third largest party in the alliance. Last year when Mamata Banerjee left the alliance, it was also two regional parties from Uttar Pradesh Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) who saved UPA government by extending their support from outside. The idea of “Federal Front” to comprise of all the regional parties in the country was already floated by another regional party – BJD supremo and the Odhisa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaike. The idea got endorsement by two regional party leaders – Bihar’s Chief Minister and JD (U) chief Nitish Kumar and Jagan Mohan, the YSR Congress leader in Andhra Pradesh. Now to see when this Federal Front can take shape and outside Narendra Modi- Rahul Gandhi orbit whether India can expect to have her next Prime Minister from a regional party ?
