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Events & Issues
New Delhi, 15 March 2017
Spotlight UP
CONTEST WITH A
DIFFERENCE
By Dr S Saraswathi
(Former Director,
ICSSR, New Delhi)
Spotlight continues to be on Uttar Pradesh among the five
States where polls were, stealing maximum attention due to the massive victory
of the BJP after 15 years. This time
the State has not displayed the dominant characteristics commonly attributed to
Assembly elections – primacy of State parties, caste or identity politics,
religious mobilization, groupism within parties, free flow of cash for votes, wild
promises of welfare measures, and suspected presence of mafia groups. The fight
was on national issues like demonetisation and development.
In fact, UP election was portrayed as semi-final game for
the BJP in the middle of its Lok Sabha term, final for Rahul Gandhi leadership
that is undergoing continuous trials, a chance to the BSP to resurrect from its
fall, and an opportunity for the SP to overcome internal fights and the
anti-incumbency phenomenon. The first alone has come victorious while others
have fallen flat.
Serious contenders in the battle included both national
parties and regional parties with national importance. The
ambition of the Congress, by reason of its diminishing performance, had
to be limited from the beginning to
safeguard and if possible improve its presence in the Assembly from its previous record of 28 seats in 2012, which
itself was an uphill task. It had to leave the field consciously to other three
principal contenders – incumbent SP, ousted BSP, and the waiting BJP setting
their aim at nothing short of capturing power individually and forming the
government.
The Congress lost UP in 1989 when the Mandal wave drowned
its prospects. The BJP led the State government for a brief period in 1991-93
and was replaced by SP and BSP combination. It
returned in 1997 to stay till 2002 in alliance with the BSP. Those were
politically turbulent years for the State which had three Chief Ministers –
Mayawati, Kalyan Singh, and Rajnath Singh.
2002 elections brought back SP with Mulayam Singh as CM.
The 15th Assembly election held in 2007 brought
BSP to power. This was attributed to Muslim-Dalit backing gained by aggressive
propaganda of its leader Mayawati, the successor to the legacy of Kanshi Ram
who passed away in 2006.
She was replaced by the Samajwadi Party in 2012 which won 224 of 403 seats.
Chief Ministership was awarded to Akhilesh Yadav in deference to “pariwar
politics” taking shape in the party. The BSP was reduced to 80 seats. BJP took
the third position then with 47 seats pushing the Congress to the fourth rank
with just 28 seats.
UP is a typical case of fluctuating fortunes of political
parties which has encouraged politics of opportunism. Even senior leaders of
some parties openly admit that there are no permanent friends or enemies in
politics justifying unprincipled politics.
Between 2012 and 2017, BJP achieved a near total victory in
UP winning 73 out of 80 Lok Sabha seats in 2014 – a success that made others
enter the poll test with diffidence in 2017. On its part, given the ups and
downs of its performance, the BJP also could not afford to be over-confident.
It had to employ its best propaganda talent and presented the PM as its face.
UP has a big minority of nearly 20 per cent Muslims in the
electorate and faces one of the most serious “communal” conflict surrounding
Mandir and Masjid at Ayodhya and caste pressures to sway the voters. Contrary
to expectations, communal divisions have not divided the voters.
Political analysts are inclined to categorise UP electorate
by religion and caste. Mobilisation of votes is perceived as that of Muslims,
backward classes, Dalits, and forward classes which encourages canvassing
group-wise like Yadava belt, Jat constituency, Muslim minority and so on. But,
in reality, voting behaviour is a complicated picture. This time it turned out
different.
The spotlight fixed on UP election throughout had various
reasons. Foremost was the split within the SP not only manifesting worst form
of family feud in politics, but also a generational shift in party leadership
and strategies. The alliance forged between the SP and the Congress was a
surprise to the party leaders themselves. The BJP, in the absence of a strong
and locally acceptable leader, kept the choice of CM in suspense. The Congress,
after floating some names, accepted the unavoidable leadership of the SP to
lean for support.
Further, each MLA of UP carries the highest value of 208
votes in Presidential election due in four months. Victory in this State will
also increase BJP membership in the Rajya Sabha badly needed for passing
legislations.
The Prime Minister’s road shows and rallies were closely
followed in letter and spirit, by time and distance, by his principal rival SP
and his mate. Akhilesh assumed a new face of pragmatic politics trying to
project a new image of the SP exhibiting risk-taking capacity. It requires
freedom from conventional lines – the handicap of the old guards and tired
politicians treading the familiar path. In this exercise, he must have earned
appreciation in political circles for its novelty irrespective of its benefits.
But, political gambles also require seasoned politicians well versed in reading
the moods of the people without being carried away by flatteries and wishful
thinking. Risk taking needs intensive study of ground reality.
To Rahul, who is not in a position to dream of capturing the
seat of UP government, it is a big win to play the role of accompanying artist
at least in campaigning to the delight of fun loving spectators weary of
watching films. Many of the Congress bigwigs were also missing in the campaigns
leaving the field to the duo – Akhilesh and Rahul. The pairing has been a total
disadvantage to the SP, the senior partner.
The Modi wave has submerged the BSP which was a bit
over-confident of its imaginary social base.
The very concept of social base of political parties has been broken in
this election.
Regionalisation of national parties in State elections in
choosing issues and methods of canvassing is understandable. And it is common.
But, in UP this time, an opposite trend of domination of national politics to a
great extent has been seen. After Internal Emergency, there has been no single
event of tremendous significance touching every citizen till adoption of
demonetisation and mega developmental projects in the wake of economic
liberalisation promoting national thinking in State election.
Today, the policy of the government at the Centre is
relevant for voting even in municipal and local board elections as most of the
policies and programmes are inter-linked. Assembly elections are part of
national politics.
Regional parties play a substantial role in national
politics through their alliances with national parties. Unfortunately, the
importance of knowing alliance partners of the regional parties before voting
is not realised by the voters. National alliances are decided by individual
parties. Changing alliance partner in
the midst of the term of an Assembly or Parliament election amounts to a sort
of political defection.
In many respects, UP Assembly
election is a contest with a difference. It has enhanced the significance of
national government for State governance. ---INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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