ISAS Working Papers

Anyone hardly expected a clear verdict in India’s parliamentary elections of 2009. Analysts and psephologists predicted a hung parliament with the two dominant coalitions of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) , led by the Congress Party, and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) , led by the Bhar atiya Janata Party (BJP) , winning almost a similar number of seats but still far fr om an absolute majority. It was argued that , in a hung parliament, government formation would be very complex as the two parties will have to poach parties from the “Third” and the “Fourth” fronts. The “Third Front” was mobili sed by the Left taking, beside s others, former NDA coalition partners such as Telegu Desham Party (TDP), led by Chandrababu Naidu of Andhra Pradesh; the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagum (AIADMK) , led by Jayalalitha from Tamil Nadu ; and the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) , led by Navin Pa tnaik from Orissa. This group wanted to form a non -Congress , non- BJP government. The “Fourth Front” comprised former UPA partners, the Rastriya Janata Dal (RJD) of Lalu Prasad Yadav, the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) of Bhola Paswan and the Socialist Party (SP ) of Mulayam Singh Yadav. They continued to claim affiliation with the UPA, though they had fallen apart from the Congress on the distribution of seats to be contested. They wanted to contest a larger number of seats on their own so as to strengthen their position in the post -election bargain within the UPA.