Lok Sabha Elections 2019: Confluence of SP-BSP hues, camaraderie in UP’s Kannauj

On January 12 this year, Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav had announced an alliance between their parties - BSP and SP . Though the two had been bitter political rivals since 1995, but since the tie-up was firmed up, the chemistry between the SP-BSP workers is so good that it has to be seen to be believed.

Bahujan Samaj Party leader Saroj Gihar, who is the party’s in-charge for Tirwa assembly constituency in Kannauj, types ‘SP’ in the contacts field on his cell phone and the names of all leaders and office-bearers of Samajwadi Party (SP) in the constituency appear on the screen.

Bahujan Samaj Party workers adding BSP flags to SP flags at the joint SP-BSP meeting in Tirwa in Kannauj on Sunday, March 17, 2019.(Pankaj Uaiswal / HT Photo)

The 27-year-old Gihar says, “Before the alliance was announced by Behenji (BSP chief Mayawati) and Bhaiya (SP president Akhilesh Yadav), I never spoke to any SP leader. Having the phone numbers of any one of them was just out of the question. Now, all of us in both the parties have the relevant phone numbers of each other. We talk frequently, meet often, and campaign together.”

Tirwa is part of the Kannauj parliamentary constituency that will go to polls in the fourth phase on April 29.

On January 12, Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav had announced the alliance between the two parties, which had been bitter political rivals since 1995. Since the tie-up was firmed up, the chemistry between the workers of the two parties is so good that it has to be seen to be believed.

A joint meeting of both the parties was held at Kharani in Tirwa assembly constituency on Sunday afternoon.

Instead of the individual names of the two parties, ‘Bahujan Samajwadi’ was printed on all the banners with the icons and leaders of the two parties.

Sitting MP Dimple Yadav, wife of Akhilesh Yadav, will seek re-election from the seat. She was elected unopposed to the seat in 2012 Lok Sabha by-polls and won the seat again in 2014 by a margin of just 1.79% voters against her nearest rival Subrat Pathak of the BJP.

The SP’s vote percentage was 43.89% and the BJP was close behind with 42.10% votes. The combined vote share of the SP and the BSP was 55.35%.

The combined vote share of the SP and the BSP exceeded the BJP’s in 42 of the 78 seats that the alliance is contesting now.

“This is what the SP-BSP intend to do. The idea is to consolidate backward, Dalit, and Muslim votes to repeat what the two parties did in 1993 when the then SP president Mulayam Singh Yadav and Bahujan Samaj Party chief Kanshiram allied for the UP assembly polls and kept the BJP out of power,” said prof SK Dwivedi, a political analyst and former head of the department of political science, Lucknow University.

The BSP’s 2014 candidate Nirmal Tiwari, who contested against Dimple Yadav and finished third with a 11.46% vote share, is now campaigning with his party for her.

“Yes, and with full camaraderie for our parties’ common goal,” said Nirmal. The bonhomie between the workers of the two parties is visible. Their leaders and workers were seen shaking hands, hugging each other, and the older leaders of one party blessing the younger ones of the other party.

Indresh Yadav, an SP leader and block pramukh of Tirwa, says: “We have already finished a round of joint booth meetings to coordinate work at the booth level. Now, all the voters in the Kannauj Lok Sabha know that SP-BSP is one.”

Dayaram Prajapati, SP backward cell president and a former minister, tells the participants in the joint meeting: “One assembly segment, on an average, has 400 booths. A Lok Sabha constituency has five assembly segments. If the BSP manages to mobilise 100 votes at each booth in favour of Dimpleji, then there will be an overall gain of two lakh votes in the Lok Sabha constituency in her favour. If the BSP garners 200 votes at each booth, then her overall gain will be four lakh votes, so on and so forth. Similarly, BSP candidates will gain if the SP does the same in other constituencies.”

Bahujan Samajwadi meetings like this have been held in three of the five assembly segments of the Kannauj parliamentary constituency. More such joint meetings and booth meetings will be organised in the days ahead.

Mayawati, along with Akhilesh Yadav, will address a public meeting in Kannauj for Dimple Yadav on April 25. When Saroj Gihar, clad in a ‘BSP blue’ waistcoat finished his speech with the slogan ‘Jai Bheem, Jai Samajwadi, Jai Bharat’, Anil Pal, the SP leader coordinating the meeting, dressed in an ‘SP red’ waistcoat, raised his hands to the crowd to prompt a cheer.

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