How they stack up?

[Cross-posted in VKpedia]

The seat-sharing arrangement of the two major fronts is out. And it makes interesting reading, into the minds of the alliance leaders, that is.

Everywhere there is talk of coalitions in politics. The positives and the downsides of this have been argued ad nauseum, so I have nothing to add to it. Except that coalitions are here to stay. This is because politicians find it easy to divide territories along casteist lines. In the future, we might have political parties forged to protect the interests of micro-communities. So don't be surprised if there springs up a new party with the sole agenda of demanding equal rights for the "34th descendant of the late Shyama Sastry (1609 - 1658) of Needamangalam".

The DMK, as analysts point out, has allocated seats in such a way as to signify that it ackowledges its readiness for coalition politics. Contesting just 129 seats, the DMK needs to have a winning rate of 91.5% to form a government on its own. Many political watchers have termed this as yet another master-stroke by Mr. Karunanidhi. He has been generous in awarding seats to the coalition partners, more than what they might have expected themselves.

On the contrary, the ADMK is contesting 182 seats. One can easily discern two reasons behind this. First, the ADMK's coalition comprises of only one large party (the MDMK). The other parties have all been allotted only single-digit seats. Secondly, and this is more important, the ADMK supremo still believes that her party has enough in it to form a government on its own.

Some may claim that the ADMK's confidence is not well-founded. But one must not forget that Ms Jayalalithaa triumphed in the 2001 elections almost single-handedly. True, the opposition wasn't as formidable then, yet the ADMK did the improbable then. This year's fight is similar - it is the DPA's numbers against Ms Jayalalithaa's charisma. Who Which will triumph? We'll know in six weeks' time.