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Mamata, Jayalalithaa: The minnows who want to be PM

Our Correspondent, New Delhi
For the last several years, the two leading ladies of coalition-hit Indian politics - Mamata Banerjee heading Trinamool Congress ruling West Bengal state and Jayalalithaa, the supremo of All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazghagam (AIADMK) governing Tamil Nadu - have been major regional satraps with national profile.
With fresh parliamentary elections just two months away and opinion polls projecting a photo finish, both the leaders are eyeing even larger roles in deciding the contours of a future government.
Both Jayalalithaa and Mamata are too hard-nosed as politicians to go public with the national ambitions of aspiring to be prime minister. But their die-hard party supporters and in some cases some leaders have not stopped from telling the media that they would like their leaders to be in the coveted post, no matter how far-fetched such dreams are.
The closest hint about AIADMK wanting to see Jayalaltihaa as PM came when the party organized a grand celebration of her 66th birthday earlier this week. Jayalalithaa cut a huge cake which was a replica of Indian parliament house in New Delhi. Posters and advertisements put up by AIADMK showed her in front of Parliament and the President of India inviting her to take oath as PM.
Tamil Nadu has 39 parliamentary seats and
adjacent Puducherry state one, and Jayalalithaa and her party and its allies CPI-M and CPI are contesting all the 40. Even the most optimistic assessment gives AIADMK and allies 36 seats.
On the other hand, Trinamool Congress supporters have been much less explicit about Mamata and have refrained from pitching her as prime minister. But nonetheless, Mamata and her party's leaders claim almost every day that Trinamool Congress will have a bigger voice in Delhi this time," Addressing election meetings, she has been saying "we will decide the next government."
However, this has not prevented anti-corruption movement leader Anna Hazare and the Shahi imam of Delhi's Jama Masjid Syed Bukhari from declaring that Mamata will be a better prime minister as both are impressed by her simple lifestyle and "development work" in West Bengal.
The tone and tenor of Mamata's campaign has tended to pander to sentiments of West Bengal voters that the state should have a greater role in national politics to end alleged discrimination from the federal government in New Delhi in terms of economic assistance.
An internal assessment gives Trinamool Congress 30 or more seats out of total 42 parliamentary seats in West Bengal. It is hoping to add a couple more from the Northeastern states and some from North India. The party is expected to put up candidates in about 10 states
outside Bengal and is looking at an overall tally of 35-plus, which could make it the third largest after main contenders for power BJP and Congress.
But is it not a joke for die-hard Trinamool and AIADMK supporters to dream of seeing Mamata or Jayalalithaa in the PM's chair with just 35-plus or 37 parliamentary seats? When H D Deve Gowda had become India's PM in 1996, his party Janata Dal had 46 seats at that time in a 543-strong Lok Sabha where 272 is the simple majority mark. Strange are the ways of coalition politics in India.
The biggest problem with both Jayalalitaa and Mamata is that they both are unpredictable. In
1998, Jayalalithaa had helped the BJP-led NDA government form under Atal Bihari Vajpayee but delayed sending the letter of support. And within a year, she had pulled the government down on grounds less than convincing. They joined hands once more before the 2004 polls, only to part again after the results.
Trinamool Congress now has 19 MPs, its highest strength ever in the Lok Sabha, while its allies from the 2009 polls and the party is confident of doing much better in this year's poll. The confidence stems from Mamata's historic sweep to power in the assembly in May 2011 and the party's experience in three Lok Sabha and nine assembly by-polls, besides elections to panchayats and municipalities and above all the disarray in her main challenger Left Front. Its vote share has been growing, with the last panchayat polls bringing it between 44 and 45 per cent against the Left Front's 30 per cent or less.
If neither BJP nor Congress or the alliances led by the two parties gets a clear majority in the coming polls and if Trinamool and AIADMK fare as well as they expect, Mamata and Jayalalithaa could hold the key to the formation of the next government India will have. A good show in parliamentary polls will enhance their heft in Indian politics and influence domestic as well as New Delhi's policies towards Bangladesh and Sri Lanka which are next door neighbours of West