WHO WILL form the next government at the Centre? And if the elections to the Lok Sabha are held in the month of December, 2008 and not in February, 20

WHO WILL form the next government at the Centre? And if the elections to the Lok Sabha are held in the month of December, 2008 and not in February, 2009, will it give any edge to the opposition (Bharatiya Janata Party) to form the government? Will it be the issue of nuclear deal for the Congress led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) to boast off or will the demon of inflation haunt the UPA leaders in the coming general elections, which will certainly provide an extra advantage to the BJP leaders in garnering political support in their favour. And if we consider the anti-incumbency factor then it seems the BJP led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) would reach to the corridors of power in the next Parliamentary elections.

One thing, which came out loud and clear in recent times is that no political party is interested in holding an early elections and all the opportunistic allies of the Congress too, want this government to complete its term and thus despite a tug of war going on over the Nuke deal between the Left and the Congress, the Left is not able to muster enough courage to withdraw support from the UPA government. It clearly shows that there is immense pressure on the Left [Communist Party of India (CPIM)] from its cadres present in West Bengal who have witnessed loss of their political seats in the recently concluded panchayat elections in the state where candidates of Trinamool Congress of Mamta Banerjee won seats and CPIM received a major blow.

More, the voters who play an important role in the formation of government (voters hailing from the rural India) have nothing to do with the Indo-US Nuclear deal, they want prices of essential commodities to come down. Neither they have any sense and knowledge of iInternational diplomacy nor they are bothered about the problems, which will have to be faced by the next government at the iInternational level if this historic Nuclear deal with US fails in getting materialised.

Now we have LK Advani as the candidate for next Prime Minister from the BJP side. Whom will the Congress project as its Prime Ministerial candidate? Will it be Dr Manmohan Singh again? Or with the inflation going high, the Congress president and the UPA chairperson, Sonia Gandhi would play her trump card and project Rahul Gandhi as the next possible Prime Minister if the UPA wants to run the government at the Centre for the second consecutive term.

What will be the role of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati? Will she be just playing the role of a King maker, which possibly looks inevitable, or will she come forward as a strong contender for the 7, Race Course Road? What are the prospects of a Third Front? Is there any leader who can convince the partners and believers of the Third front, which once came into existence for keeping both the BJP and the Congress out of power, and which became the reason for ouster of the then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and HD Deve Gowda became the Prime Minister.

LK Advanis image as a Hindu hardliner leader doesnt get him support from the other so called secular political parties, something which Atalji enjoyed. His remarks over Jinnah are still fresh in the minds of Hindus and the partys unkept promise of building the Ram temple at Ayodhya when they ruled at the Centre, has annoyed a vast majority of Hindus, especially the Sadhu samaj.