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Uttar Pradesh : caste-based strategy of BJP

	June 18, 2001

A survey carried out by the BJP has placed the Samajwadi Party ahead of the others in the race for numbers in Uttar Pradesh. In the Assembly elections, the party headed by the former Defence Minister, Mulayam Singh Yadav, would finish first with 115 to 120 seats, followed by the BJP and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) with about 100 seats each. The BJP’s tally includes that of its existing allies - the Loktantrik Congress Party (LCP), Kisan Mazdoor Bahujan Party (KMBP) and the Samata party.

According to the projection the Congress could secure between 40 and 45 seats, Kalyan Singh’s party 20 to 25 seats and Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) about 20.

The survey indicates a hung House with no party or combine anywhere within striking distance of power. In a House of 403, a party or combination would require at least 200 elected members to stake claim to form the Government.

BJP sources said that the party’s main goal in Uttar Pradesh is to “somehow” bridge the gap in the tally projected for itself and the Samajwadi Party. They said the party would try to recompense the loss of more backward caste votes after the exit of Kalyan Singh by roping in caste-based parties like the RLD and the Apna Dal which represent the Jats and Kurmis. “Even if they do not add substantially to our vote percentage, an alliance with these parties will, at least, ensure that the votes of these castes do not split,” the sources said.

The BJP has, therefore, decided to tackle the elections on a war-footing. Starting June 24, all party workers including Chief Minister Rajnath Singh will fan out in the rural areas in the state to monitor rural development schemes. At the same time, the Chief Minister has announced certain schemes to woo Muslim voters. The Chief Minister himself is being seen as the trump card of the party. The strategy is to form pre-poll alliances so that the BJP can emerge as the single largest group. The obvious allies are the RLD, and the Apna Dal which is another caste-based set up.

The Congress is also gearing up for the Uttar Pradesh elections having announced a new 236 member UPCC executive. The party has decided to divide Uttar Pradesh into 17 divisions for the purpose of elections. Each division would be put in charge of a state vice president, a general secretary and two secretaries. Party leaders are preparing for the elections as early as in September although according to the Election Commission, the poll is not due till February-March next year.



Ayodhya as an election issue

The construction of a Ram temple at the site in Ayodhya where the demolished Babri masjid stood, was a slogan that fired the imagination of Hindus in Uttar Pradesh and in other parts of North India. The BJP capitalised on the Ayodhya movement politically which saw its strength in the Lok Sabha rise from two to the present levels. At that time, the movement was led by L.K. Advani and he acknowledged graciously the support received from various RSS outfits including the VHP and the Bajrang Dal. Even the Shiv Sena was a partner in the movement. The rise of the BJP into a national party can be attributed solely to the Ayodhya factor. The present times are different. Many BJP leaders feel that the Ayodhya factor has been exploited sufficiently and making it an issue once again will become counter-productive. There are also compulsions of coalition politics which prevent the RSS and the BJP to exploit it as brazenly as it was done a decade ago.

But it appears that the ghost of the Ram temple movement, never quite buried, is set to haunt the political landscape of India yet again. The Times of India has chronicled developments over the last few days which point disturbingly and unmistakably in that direction. On Monday last, Human Resource Development Minsiter, Murli Manohar Joshi, in his deposition before the Liberhan Commission made the startling admission that the then Kalyan Singh government’s acquisition in 1991 of 2.77 acres of land around the disputed Babri Masjid in Ayodhya was meant for temple construction. In its submissions before the Commission thus far, the BJP leadership had taken the ingenuous line that the land had been acquired for the “development of tourism.” The following day, the state Chief Minsiter, Rajnath Singh announced that his government would not issue any further notification in the ongoing CBI cases relating to the Masjid demolition. This effectively put an end not only to criminal proceedings against top party leaders, but also the faint hope that the law may yet be allowed to run its course in one of the most significant legal challenges of Independent India.

The VHP and other Hindu organisations affiliated to the BJP have already threatened that unless the UP Government allows them to begin the construction of the proposed Ram Temple at the site of the demolished mosque, they will restart their ‘suspended’ agitation in January next year.

Union Home Minsiter L.K. Advani’s deposition before the Liberhan Commission on Wednesday last was another indicator. He has once again sought aggressively to defend and justify the movement by likening it to the national freedom movement. Gone is the circumspection and restraint of his earlier depositions where he appeared to adopt a tone, if not of disavowal, at least a muted and shamefaced contrition. The overriding message in all this is that the BJP leadership is in a state of utter panic. The party feels that it cannot afford to lose in UP. At the same time, it knows that it cannot go to the people on the back of the dismal performance of its government in the state. Hence, the decision to resurrect yet again an issue that has very little to commend it either on grounds of reason or political morality. Indeed, even as strategy, since it runs the danger of threatening the survival of its own coalition government at the Centre.



A dark future ahead

The future looks dark for the BJP in UP, even though Rajnath Singh is a more convincing chief minister than his predecessor, R.P. Gupta. He has gone about doing the kind of things chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh are supposed to do: procure paddy at Rs 610 a quintal as against Rs 225 previously, procure 550,000 tonnes of foodgrains as against the 50,000 tonnes that Rajnath Singh himself says was the norm before him, promise to build a Buddha statue, bigger than the ones destroyed in Bamiyan, because it might make the Dalits happy and use the phrase Bahujan as often as possible to confuse the so-designated with regard to the BSP. Above all, however, there is the feeling that there is an administration in the state, which in Uttar Pradesh is always a big plus point. However, problems, having to do with electoral arithmetic, remain.

And the brain trust of the BJP seems to be convinced that it is difficult for the party to retain power in Uttar Pradesh on its own. The solution, the party seems to have in mind, is to forge pre-poll alliances with Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and Sone Lal Patel’s Apna Dal. The alliances may come through, but the party will have to pay a heavy price for it.

The BJP which bagged 34 per cent votes in 1996 Assembly polls winning 177 seats, could muster only 27 per cent votes in the 1999 Lok Sabha elections resulting in its share of seats from UP in Parliament falling almost by half seats (from 57 in 1998 to 27 in ’99 - or 135 Assembly segments in the undivided UP Assembly consisting of 425 seats. post-Uttarakhand the tally has been reduced to 155 in the present Assembly)

The BJP wants to make up for the loss of its vote bank by roping in chieftains of various castes - a complete about turn for the party which claims to abhor caste politics.

Ajit Singh, a leader of Jats who comprise 3.75 per cent of the state population, claims to be in a position to influence results in over 100 Assembly seats, has scaled down his demand from 60 to 45 seats in Western UP. The BJP feels that by riding piggyback on Ajit, it could bag the entire Jat vote in the state.

The major hurdle in BJP finalising its alliance with Ajit, remains his demand for creation of Harit Pradesh out of Western UP which will be difficult for the BJP to endorse since it could boost the demand for Telengana in Andhra Pradesh. Andhra Chief Minister Chandra Babu Naidu is dead against further division of his state.

Another problem concerning Ajit Singh is the disquiet expressed by the Haryana chief minister, Om Prakash Chautala. Chautala, whose party extends support to the NDA’s government from outside, has threatened to withdraw support if Ajit Singh is brought into the NDA and consequently into the government. He himself has to contend with large scale revolt within his own party for taking the decision to join the NDA. He has already expelled two office-bearers, S.P. Malaviya and Rashid Masood, from the party and is losing a few more senior leaders. But his ambition for a berth in the Union cabinet has compelled him to ignore the loss of credibility and support base for the party. The BJP leaders have preferred Ajit Singh to Chautala owing to their preoccupation with election preparations in Uttar Pradesh, which may go to the polls in February 2002.

The Apna Dal is another caste based party that the BJP is trying to woo. It claims to champion the cause of Kurmis, the second-most dominant backward caste after Yadavs, comprising seven per cent of the state’s population. Though the BJP is yet to start seat-sharing talks with the Apna Dal, the Dal is expected to demand at least 90 seats since its vote bank is almost double of that of Ajit Singh.

The Apna Dal might have only one seat in the present Assembly, but it has emerged as a major spoiler for the BJP which used to bag a majority of Kurmi votes till Patel formed his party five years ago. Patel has already been in touch with Ajit Singh and the two had planned a federation of regional parties with Kalyan Singh’s Rashtriya Kranti Party (RKP) before Ajit cosied up to the BJP. BJP leaders feel that his influence over Patel, would help them rope in the Dal.

As per the strategy evolved by the BJP for the Assembly poll, the party would target only upper caste votes, leaving allies like the Dal and the RLD to woo a section of the 27 per cent OBCs excluding Yadavs who are still with Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav. BJP has no hope of cutting into the BSP’s 22 per cent Dalit vote bank or the Muslims (17 per cent) who vote for the SP and the BSP.

BJP leaders feel that by roping in Patel and Ajit, they would increase the alliance’s vote share by about 10 per cent which could just be sufficient to catapult it to power.

The BJP has to placate its present allies also. Naresh Agarwal, leader of the LCP, the UP government’s main ally, has projected himself as leader of the Vaishya community by organising a national level convention in the Capital last month. The LCP, which has 19 MLAs besides two MPs each in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, too is likely to demand almost as many seats as asked for by Ajit Singh, besides a Cabinet berth at the Centre if the RLD gets it.

The disintegration of the 17-member Jantantrik BSP legislature party has caused more problems for the BJP as four of its MLAs have joined Ram Vilas Paswan’s Lok Morcha and some others have joined Sharad Yadav’s Janata Dal. Thus, the BJP will have to meet the demands of at least four NDA partners - Paswan, Yadav, Aggarwal and Samata Party leader George Fernandes who has two MLAs in the present Assembly.

If the BJP decides to bow to the demands, it will end up contesting barely 200 to 250 out of the 403 Assembly seats in the state.