Rajya Sabha MP Jaya Bachchan arrives in Parliament on Wednesday. Picture by Rajesh Kumar

New Delhi, March 5: As the Congress debates the pluses and minuses of an early election, Lalu Prasad has made it clear that polls will take place according to the Lok Sabha calendar — in April 2009.

“Not a day earlier. Why should we repeat the NDA’s India Shining mistake?” he asked today.

Lalu Prasad, whose RJD is the biggest component within the UPA after the Congress, was dismissive of the “third front” and its attempts to get close to the CPM.

“What is the third front? It is not possible in the polarised politics of the day. We have a secular compartment and a communal compartment and the parties have to decide which one they want to get into,” the railway minister said.

Asked about CPM general secretary Prakash Karat’s repeated statements on creating a third non-Congress, non-BJP alternative, he said: “Woh to abhi naya naya general secretary bana hai na (he has just assumed office as general secretary, isn’t it)?”

But the RJD leader did not elaborate on the remark.

Although a section in the Congress is gung-ho about P. Chidambaram’s budget and wants the party to “encash” its “positive spin-offs” as early as possible without waiting for anti-incumbency to override them, the leaders and strategists are clear about certain ground rules:

Lalu Prasad

• Sonia Gandhi will take a call on the poll timing and won’t do anything without Lalu Prasad’s and the DMK’s nod. Sources said despite the feedback that none of these parties can repeat their 2004 success and add value to the UPA’s aggregate, she would not dump them.

• The loan-waiver promise may sound good but like India Shining, it could boomerang and not fetch the projected electoral dividends. Some Congress, RJD and DMK MPs feel that since unorganised money-lending is more rampant in villages, most borrowers, particularly small and marginal farmers, may not benefit. So, the UPA needs time to assess its impact.

• The government’s first priority should be to rein in prices of essential commodities.

• The Congress must decide whether it wants to part ways with the Left. “This is the most crucial call. Sonia will have to make a choice about defending the Prime Minister on the nuclear deal or burying it and keeping the Left on her side. The government can survive but, some of us feel, it will lose the little prestige it regained because of the budget,” a source said.

The deal’s advocates, who include weighty functionaries and ministers, feel the government should go ahead with it and “risk” alienating the Left. “It’s a risk worth taking because the next Lok Sabha will be even more chaotic than this one. But when it comes to the secular-communal principle, the Left will have no choice but to stick to the Congress,” a source said.