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Uttar Pradesh : Key to survival |
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The shadow of Uttar Pradesh has once again begun to loom large on the political configurations of the ruling establishment as well as the Opposition even as the Centre and the state government are debating the merits and demerits of an early election. Whether it is the proposed cabinet reshuffle, roping in of new allies, economic reforms, or inducting Jayalalitha into the People’s Front - Uttar Pradesh seems to have a bearing on all these issues, directly or indirectly.
Though Vajpayee’s political fate could be linked to whether the BJP wins or loses the Assembly polls, so far he has not involved himself closely with the nitty-gritty of strategy planning and election management, but has left it to Advani and the RSS old timers like former president, Kushabhau Thakre and the present president Jana Krishnamurthy.
The broad strategy so far evolved is that the BJP will follow a three-point formula for sharing assembly seats with its present and future allies. The seats held by alliance partners will be earmarked for them at the first instance, followed by the allotment of those seats to the runners up where rival parties had won. The remainder will be divided on the basis of the poll prospects of each party.
The BJP state unit does not appear to be very confident and senior party leaders openly admit that they may not cross the 150 mark in the forthcoming Assembly poll. The party has neither improved its performance nor its image. Financial mismanagement, a grim power situation and an even worse law and order situation are political legacies which the government will have to face. Matters are not made easy with the party fragmented on caste lines. Also, the four power centres, Kalraj Mishra, O.P. Singh, Rajnath Singh and Lalji Tandon, pull BJP workers and supporters in different directions.
The party’s vote bank among the upper castes is disappointed about its new found love for the lower and backward castes. They have not forgiven the BJP for changing its stance on the Ayodhya issue. And the backward castes have not forgiven the party for the ill-treatment meted out to their leader, former Chief Minister, Kalyan Singh. Above all, the BJP appears to have handed over the Yadav vote bank to Samajwadi Party leader, Mulayam Singh. Without the support of the lower and backward castes and the Yadavs, no party can hope to win in any election in Uttar Pradesh.
Writing on the wall
When last month’s Assembly poll brought little cheer to the BJP, it sought to deflect political embarrassment by challenging all and sundry to show their mettle in Uttar Pradesh where Assembly elections are due in a few months. The Prime Minister was more circumspect, saying merely that UP would be a “test case”. Mr Vajpayee is right. If his party fails to live up to expectations in the country’s biggest state, the writing will be on the wall.
The prognosis is none too good, though. The party has lost several recent by-elections in UP by big margins, even losing at Shahjehanpur where it came a miserable fourth, well behind the limping Congress. The party’s showing was anything but spectacular. It was able to get into government by swallowing its pride and entering into a post-poll ‘time-share’ arrangement with the Bahujan Samaj Party. When to no one’s surprise this relationship ended in recriminations, the BJP encouraged splits in numerous parties and was able to retain the chief ministership with the support of defectors of diverse descriptions. Since then, it has been rocked by internal problems - first Kalyan Singh’s departure which shook its standing among the backward classes, and later the jettisoning by the party of its own chief minister, the lacklustre Ram Prakash Gupta.
That signalled the end of ‘social engineering’ attempted by the saffron brotherhood. Leaders from the ‘subaltern’ classes, who had risen to prominence in the party, were shown the door, and the BJP was back to beckoning its core constituency, the upper castes. The supposedly dynamic Rajnath Singh, then a union minister, was hastily asked to pack his bags for Lucknow. Much was expected of him, but Singh’s tenure is likely to be remembered as a period of unmet expectations. Criminals continue to have a field day, UP groans under a power crisis and the farming community is full of complaints.
The open discord between the Thakur chief minister and the Brahmin state party chief has hardly helped matters. Convenient alliances with minor groups will no doubt be struck before the poll, but caste-based agglomerations hardly ever bail out a party if its image is in decline.
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