The claimants to the Third Front plank are many but the colours of the rainbow are very different. A Left parties-led coalition currently has on it Nitish Kumar of the Janata Dal (U), Jayalalthaa of the AIADMK), Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), Janata Dal Secular (JDS), led by HD Deve Gowda and a few others. If push comes to shove, the Samajwadi Party could join this coalition, but there is no particular enthusiasm among the partners to welcome Mulayam Singh Yadav and his party, given their past experience with his politics. So far as TMC is concerned it cannot ever be part of this grouping especially when the Left has been the integral part of this formation. This leaves a Mamata Banerjee-led coalition a possible future option. Then who else could join this? Only those with whom the TMC has no contradictions. In concrete terms, this means Mayawati of the BSP, Naveen Patnaik of the BJD, and a handful of smaller groupings. One wonders: is the said Third Front possible at all.