Oommen Chandy has the experience of being chief minister of Kerala, so he can be the chief minister once again. A new post - that of deputy chief minister - can be created and Pinarayi Vijayan, who has been the “disputed” leader of the Communists of the state, can fit into that position. Other portfolios can be suitably divided among the Congress Party, the CPM, the CPI, the Kerala Congress, the Janata Dal, etc. Better still, the Congress and the CPM can split the chief minister’s post into two separate halves, Chandy for the first two-and-a-half years and Vijayan for the next two-and-a-half. 
Before you begin to think this column is going out its depth, allow me to put things in perspective. 
Five states are going to polls in the next three months. Of this, Puducherry is a Union Territory and does not attract much attention. Of the other four, Tamil Nadu is an open and shut case - the two Dravidian parties are the ones that matter and nobody else, with Chief Minister Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK tipped to retain its hold. Both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are nowhere in the picture. In fact, the Congress is hitching a ride on the back of the DMK while the BJP is seeking a similar arrangement with Jayalalithaa. 
The third state in the equation is Assam where the BJP sees its chance getting brighter by the day both in terms of defections and desertions from the ruling Congress as well as the anti-incumbency weighing heavily on Tarun Gogoi who is completing 15 years at the helm of affairs. 
That leaves us with West Bengal and Kerala. Here, too, the BJP is nowhere in the reckoning. Nevertheless things are getting complicated for the Congress and the Communists in these two states.  
Mamata Bannerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) won a stupendous victory in May 2011 ending 34 years of Communist rule. The TMC-Congress alliance won 227 of the 294 assembly seats. But that was five years ago and much water has flowed down under the Howrah bridge since then. The Congress and the TMC have fallen apart on many issues both in the state and at the Centre and try as they might there is little meeting ground for the two to come together again. 
Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi is reportedly keen to tie up with the TMC once again, but the local unit of the party is threatening revolt if events come to such a pass. 
The TMC, for its part, is keeping its cards close to its chest. Party spokespersons in Kolkata or in Delhi would only maintain that the TMC is capable of winning, that too handsomely, on its own. But when any political party says so you know things are not looking good for it. What it really means is it is open to alliances. A series of financial scams - the Sarada chit fund case being the prime example - and law and order problems that reminded many of the bad old days of the Marxist rule have put the TMC on the back foot. 
The state’s economy is nowhere near the robust and rosy picture that Bannerjee had promised during her ‘paribartan’ (total change) rallies in the run-up to the elections five years ago. In fact state Finance Minister Amit Mitra is on record saying the $2.8bn debt repayment that the state would have to make to the federal government in 2017-18 would most certainly be unmanageable. Five years of Trinamool rule has not seen any significant change in the levels of poverty or unemployment. 
The Communists thought they were dead and buried five years ago. But the disillusionment with the Bannerjee regime has suddenly given them hope. But the Marxists also realise that they still have a long way to go before they can confront her on their own. But with the help of the Congress Party they think they can make a fight of it. No less a person than former chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacherjee has called on the Congress Party to join hands with the Left to defeat the TMC. 
“What is the Congress leadership thinking today? We are not alone. Come and join us. Every opposition party should come and join hands to dislodge this undemocratic government,” Bhattacharjee, who was the last Communist chief minister to rule West Bengal, told a rally in Singur last week. Prakash Karat, the erstwhile general secretary of the CPM, is said to be opposed to any such alliance with the Congress. Sitaram Yechuri, who succeeded him to the top post, has also said a tie-up with the Congress is being considered. All that the CPM headquarters will officially say for now is a decision would be taken “at the appropriate time.” 
It is still a 50-50 proposition but a positive signal from Rahul Gandhi or his mother Sonia could tilt the scale in favour of an alliance. The Gandhis, in turn, require the support of Yechuri and other Left-wingers in the Rajya Sabha to oppose Prime Minister Narendra Modi on key legislative proposals like the GST and the land acquisition bill. A win-win situation of sorts, you could say. 
But the picture gets complicated when the focus shifts to Kerala. It’s a direct fight between the Left, of which the CPM is the chief constituent, and the Congress. The BJP at best can hope to open its account in these upcoming elections. However, since it has been a neck-and-neck race between the Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the United Democratic Front (UDF), any victory for the BJP could have an impact on the eventual overall winner in the state. At the same time both the LDF and the UDF see the BJP as common enemy with which either of them will have no truck. 
The BJP will gain added fodder in Kerala if the Congress and the Left were to join hands in West Bengal. Modi’s fledgling party in the state is bound to highlight the political opportunism of the protagonists. Unless, of course, the Congress and the Left decide to come to terms in Kerala too. 
Unthinkable, you might say. But who would have thought that Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad, sworn enemies for close to 20 years, could bury their differences, personal as well as ideological, to fight a common enemy? And who would have expected Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to make common cause with the Congress, a party which for decades had been anathema to Marxist ideals? 
Talk of politics making strange bedfellows, there is an almighty churning taking place in Indian politics thanks to the emergence of Narendra Modi at the national level and you can never tell who will end up with whom eventually. Ideologically entrenched parties are getting ready to forget their differences to come together and fight a bigger common enemy. The BJP has quite a distance to cover before it can threaten either the UDF or the LDF in Kerala. But as has been demonstrated more than once, five years is a long time in politics and if not for this year’s elections it could well spring a challenge for 2021. Oommen Chandy, or someone from his party, could possibly be sharing power with Pinarayi Vijayan or his ilk then! 


‘Aaloo’ vs Lalu
in Bihar
In his election manifesto Nitish Kumar had promised to ban liquor from Bihar. True to his word the government had announced that prohibition - if not total at least partial - will come into force from April 1. 
The financial wizkids in the government took out their calculators. They told Kumar that the state’s economy will be set back by at least $615mn a year from the loss of excise revenue. Already one of the poorest states in the country, that kind of money is a mountain for Bihar. 
Kumar and his wizkids thought long and hard on how to offset the loss. Some suggested new tax on cars. But there are not many cars sold in Bihar. Others said levy further tax on cigarettes. But Bihar is mainly a beedi-smoking state and beedis are mostly made in the unorganised sector. Not much to gain from that either. 
It was then that someone in the crowd came up with the idea to tax samosas - that all-time favourite of the North Indian palate. Kumar found merit in it and gave the go-ahead. Although latter-day entrepreneurs have introduced many flavours of the snack, the one that has stood the test of time is stuffed with potato. 
Now, “aaloo” is the Hindi word for potato and Lalu Prasad, Nitish Kumar’s senior partner in the government, had once famously said: “As long as ‘aaloo’ will remain in samosa, Lalu will remain in Bihar!” But with the new “luxury tax”, even the existence of samosas is threatened. But no truth in the rumour that Nitish is trying to send a veiled message to Lalu.