Third Front (India)

Third Front in Indian politics refers to various alliances formed by smaller parties at various points of time since 1989 to offer a third option to Indian voters, challenging the Indian National Congress and Bhartiya Janata Party.

National Front (NF) was a coalition of political parties, led by the Janata Dal, which formed India's government between 1989 and 1990 under the leadership of N. T. Rama Rao as President and V. P. Singh as Convener. The coalition's prime minister was V. P. Singh later succeeded by Chandra Shekhar.The parties in the Front were: Janata Dal at national level, Telugu Desam Party of Andhra Pradesh, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam of Tamil Nadu, and Asom Gana Parishad of Assam and Indian Congress (Socialist). They were supported from outside by the Left Front and the Bharatiya Janata Party although they were not working together and the supports were repaid and the parties had no bond joined when V.P. Singh was elected PM, hence V.P. Singh was P.M from the Left Democratic Front. The Leader of the Opposition, P. Upendra was a General Secretary of the Front at its formation.

In 1991, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha became a part of the front. The front got defunct before 1996 LS polls when NF tried to rope in both DMK and AIADMK resulting in the walking out of the DMK. In 1995 TDP also split with a minority faction siding with N. T. Rama Rao and the majority faction chose to side with Chandrababu Naidu. After NTR died of a heart attack in January 1996, Janata Dal stood by Rama Rao's widow Lakshmi Parvathi while Left parties formed an alliance with Chandrababu Naidu.

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