2014 elections will be a mad scramble for Yeddyurappa, Nitish, Mamata, Jayalalithaa, Mulayam and Mayawati

Karnataka Janata Party leader B.S. Yeddyurappa has gone ahead and announced that he wants to move to national politics. One can’t miss the irony. When he was in the national Bharatiya Janata Party, his eyes were set on Karnataka; now that he has formed and leads the regional Karnataka party, he is setting his eyes on Delhi. That there is nothing much to do in Bangalore is only one reason, what he’s doing now is marking himself available. Not sold.

As the 2014 general elections draw closer, they know the value for an MP will appreciate. This is the coalition era, the age of political marriages. One needs to be available to get hitched by whoever rides the hustings horse. He knows if he goes back to the BJP household, he will not stand a chance.

There has been quite a few moves made by the BJP to draw the once-disgraced Lingayat leader back into the fold. But he would love to wait it out and not get engaged in a pre-poll alliance. The return is low in such returns. He is not alone.

Mamata Banerjee.

Mamata Banerjee has left the Congress alliance and has declared herself available. She is virulently opposed to BJP’s prime ministerial candidate-in-chief Narendra Modi, but has not burnt her bridges with the old man in the house, Lal Krishna Advani. While Rahul Gandhi is ridiculed as Pappu, the only politician who will reply to the call Pappu, Naveen Patnaik, has been available but refuses to flaunt the tag. He has stayed equidistant from both UPA and NDA for quite some time, but 2014 is when he may have to choose one way or the other. All spells wane, and need props to stay magic.

Nitish Kumar.

Nitish Kumar has seen that pre-poll alliances lower the party’s return on investment. He has made himself available too. But he has projected his breakup with the BJP as a breakup with Narendra Modi. He has one foot inside the NDA camp and set one in the UPA. Whoever wins takes all.

Jayalalithaa.

Jayalalithaa has done the opposite. She has not aligned herself with the BJP as much she has with Narendra Modi. They have formed a mutual admiration society, instead of forming an alliance. So neither is pledged to each other. If Congress has the numbers, she has her secular credentials to join the UPA. If Modi manages to do the magic, mutual admiration turns into an alliance.

Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Mulayam Singh Yadav’s recent softened stand on various things is not hard to explain. He regrets the firing he ordered on karsevaks, who were hellbent on demolishing the disputed Babri mosque in Ayodhya. At the same time, he wants to accord adequate respect to the ‘elderly statesman and political stalwart’, L.K. Advani, who created the karsevaks. Irony goes back and dies in that Ayodhya firing.

But then irony isn’t the only casualty. His party’s government in Uttar Pradesh, led by his son, has neither been here nor there since Akhilesh Yadav became the chief minister. Narendra Modi has chosen his Man Friday, Amit Shah, to manage UP. Mulayam’s bete noir Mayawati is equally available for partnerships. Mulayam has a tough battle ahead, because a polarisation in votes many not benefit him. His vote bank faces division.

That leaves Lalu Prasad, Congress foe-turned-friend, who is neither a foe nor a friend of the UPA. He is in it, yet he is out in the wild. The JD(U)-BJP breakup in Bihar has him upbeat. He is available, but only for the Congress now.

The available people also stand a chance to strike it big if both the UPA and the NDA fail miserably enough for the third front to hoist themselves on Raisina and share the spoils. But any united front will come to front only after the elections. It pays to be divided in the run-up.