New Delhi, March 26: In a sharp rebuff to the Samajwadi Party (SP), the Congress and the BJP Monday said that there was no possibility of a third front central government after the 2014 general elections.
"I don't think there is any possibility of any third front. History is witness that whenever a third front has come into existence, it has collapsed for the sake of power," Congress spokesperson Rashid Alvi told reporters.
"People do not trust such third fronts," he said.
The Congress was reacting to SP Mulayam Singh Yadav's recent remarks that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was better at handling coalition partners than the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance.
Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh dismissed Mulayam Singh's view.
"We work according to the situation.. Whatever he (Mulayam Singh) has said is not anything new," he said.
BJP leader Balbir Punj said that a third or fourth front would continue to be in the news for the "wrong reasons" but it will be a "non-starter".
But the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), a UPA partner, said that the era of coalition had begun.
"Different parties with common understandings and a programme will come together to form the government and the political formation," NCP general secretary D.P. Tripathi said.
He also urged regional parties to group before the 2014 general elections through a common agenda.
Mulayam Singh, whose party rules Uttar Pradesh and supports the UPA from outside, has been flexing muscles of late saying the next Lok Sabha polls, sceduled for 2014, could be held this year.
He has asked SP workers to prepare for a general election.
His calculation is to garner enough Lok Sabha seats from Uttar Pradesh to project himself as the head of a possible coalition of regional parties in case both the national parties - the Congress and the BJP - are not in a position to form a government.
Mulayam Singh's son and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav told a TV channel Sunday that the SP was ready with a plan to withdraw support to the UPA government after the parliament's budget session ends May 10.
The SP's support to the UPA has become crucial after the exit of DMK last week over a United Nations Human Right Council (UNHRC) vote against Sri Lanka in Geneva.
