ENARADA, New Delhi
By Ajay N Jha
The Akhilesh yadav government in UP has been bizarre. Not only it has been an utter failure in terms of law and order, its Muslim appeasement policy is going to fear UP apart in many pockets in the coming days and turn Uttar Pradesh in a communal conundrum which would take the State back by many years. The process of communalization has started yet again and it would directly benefit BJP and SP and leave both BSP and Congress marginalized in the State.
Mulayam Singh created a history by stopping the BJP juggeranaught both in 2004 and 2009 Lok Sabha polls. The BJP could manage just 9 seats from UP in 2009 Lok Sabha polls. But the same Mulayam has started playing dirty and gone back to his 1989 role when he had become the Chief Minister with the help of BJP.
Mulayam is , in a way, facilitating the BJP to bounce back into mainstream in UP with his lop-sided Muslim appeasement policy all over again. This time around, he has carefully targeted western UP where Jat- Muslim used to be very formidable since Chuadhary Charan Singh days and that Charan Singh’s BKD used to win at least 90 seats from that area.
It could be noted that SP did not get a single seat from this area in the last LS polls as most of the seats went to BSP, Congress and RLD and the BJP also got a few seats from the Western UP region. The RLD had entered into electoral alliance with BJP but the BJP did not get much advantage because the Muslim component of RLD did not vote for BJP candidates.
With this riot, Mulayam has created a big rift between these two communities and now neither Jats not Muslims would vote for RLD. Perhaps Mulayam would have thought that by doing this, his party would perhaps get en bloc support of Muslim voters while the Jats would veer towards the BJP. In other words, Mulayam still believes that he could break the back of RLD by separating Jats from Muslims and SP would be in a position to rake in the support of entire Muslim community in the area. While this may lead to a fresh round of polarization of voters on communal lines between the BJP and SP but he has not understood its implications at the larger level. The danger is that the whole State would be engulfed into a different kind of communal cauldron which could cut many political parties both ways.
But Mulayam did not anticipate the popular outcry from many Muslim organizations across the State and a near revolt from Azam Khan who refused to participate in the SP national Executive meeting held at Agra on 9th September 2013. He also did not anticipate the opposition from at least 12 Muslim organizations which have protested in Delhi and Lucknow against SP and wanted the imposition of President’s rule in the State because “ Akhilesh Yadav government had failed to ensure the safety and security of Muslims in Uttar Pradesh”.
There are enough indications now that Mulayam’s ploy may boomerang in the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls. So far, the Samajwadi party has been depending only on yadav and Muslim votes and a smaller percentage of other caste voters. Apart from 11 percent yadav and 20 percent Muslim voters in the state, Mulayam Singh also used to get a few percent voters from the OBC and other castes. That means, he is aiming for the consolidation of only about 35 to 38 percent voters in a four cornered fight in the State in 2014.
This time around, Mulayam may face double whammy because not only he has helped the BJP in creating a fresh ground in Western UP(because jats, Gujjars, Rajputs, Brahmins and other backward classes have joined hands to support BJP in Western UP) he also faces the danger of losing a huge chunk of Muslim voters because they have started hating him.
It could be noted that in one year, not only Uttar Pradesh has –seen more than 104 communal riots, Akhilesh yadav’s government’s decision to re-open at least 100 slaughter houses across the State( which Mayawati government had banned) has also infuriated other sections of the people.
The fresh alignment of forces in the State is also going to affect BSP in some way. There are indications that many BSP leaders from Buldelkhand and Western UP who have been fed up with Mayawati, would be going to join BJP soon. People like Vijay Bahadur Singh and a few others are already in touch with Amit Shah and they may cross over within a month following RS Vidhuri’s inclusion in BJP a few days ago in New Delhi.
On the other hand, a large section of Muslim voters and supporters of SP are in total disarray and they may change their mind to flock to Congress party. They have relaized that Mulayam Singh is no more their savior and they should now look towards the Congress party. Many Muslim leaders whom I spoke to in last few days, clearly said that they cannot be fooled anymore by Mulayam and it would better for the Muslim community to support the Congress party to stop Modi.
But they are annoyed by the fact that no senior Congress leader could reach across to them or even speak for them even as Muzaffarnagar continued to burn. The Congress party does not have a credible face in Uttar Pradesh and that is going to a huge challenge in the coming days as well.
As of now, the BJP seems to be a better state of preparedness in Uttar Pradesh and it is trying to cover all aspects. Not only, it has succeeded in putting Mulayam into a pit and expanding its voter base ‘in the name of communal divide’, it has also placed its Chieftains at various places carefully. For example, it has brought in Modi’s ‘chief strategist’ Amit Shah as UP in charge. The President of UP unit of BJP is Laxmi Kant Bajpayee( bramhin), BJP President Rajnath Singh( Rajput) himself comes from the State. The BJP legislature party leader in the Assembly is Hukum Singh(a Gujjar from Muzaffarnagar). It has leaders like Uma Bharti and kalyan Singh kalvi who come from Lodh Rajput(OBC) community apart from seniors like kalraj Mishra( Bramhin), Lalji Tandon( Bania) and Om prakash Singh( Kurmi leader)
The BSP, on the other hand, has been functioning like a Monolithic structure and all those social engineering taamashas have now started fading away. Maywati faces the danger of at least 2 to 3 percent of its voter’s base shifting towards the BJP in the changed circumstances.
This leaves the Congress party in all the more piquant situation. Neither the Congress party is in a position to take advantage of the shift in the attitude of Muslim voters away from SP nor it has been able to create the party organization machinery which is good enough to withstand the saffron onslaught. The Muslim community may shift its support to Congress but that alone is not going to be enough to win a significant number of seats in the forthcoming LS polls for a variety of reasons.
The Congress party has not been able to nurture a credible Muslim face from Up in last few years. People like Salman Khurshid and a few others are not seen as their true Representative. The UPCC President is a Nirmal Khatri ( Bania) whose community voters have predominantly been with BSP. CLP leader Pradeep Mathur comes from kayastha community which has been supporting either BJP or BSP. The new AICC General Secretary in charge of the State, Mr Madhusudan Mistry is hardly known to the party workers of UP. There is no credible face from the OBC community except Beni Prasad Verma(kurmi).
Brahmins( 11.3 percent) and Rajputs( 5.6 percent) apart from Bhumihars(1.48 percent) too have their pockets of influence . But the Congress party has not been able to create local leaders from these communities as well.
RLD led by Ajit Singh is the UPA II ally at the centre but then, he has been shifting his loyalty every time. For example, RLD had fought 2004 Lok Sabha polls along with SP where it got 5 seats and Samajwadi party managed 39 seats. But the same RLD had electoral alliance with BJP in 2009 LS polls and now it is with UPA. Indications are that he may again switch sides before 2014 polls and may join hands with BJP again.
Under these circumstances, the Congress party would prove to be the biggest loser and what is all the more shocking is the cocky and clumsy approach of Madhusudan Mistry who has not been to do the re-structuring of the UPCC even now ( To be continued)
(Posted on September 14, 2013 @ 9pm)
(Ajay N Jha is a veteran journalist from both Print and Electronic media. He is the President and CEO of WICS Global Communications. His email id is Ajay N Jha <ajayjha30@gmail.com> )
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