It’s a piquant situation as the two political combinations, which have raised a war cry to defeat the BJP in Uttar Pradesh and oust its government from New Delhi, are eating into each other’s vote banks more than that of the party they intend to defeat.
The party leaders themselves fear loss of about 20-odd seats because of this division of votes and are pinning their hopes on some tactical understanding at the eleventh hour.
Interesting, senior Congress and SP leaders, while laying emphasis on a dialogue between their party high commands to save some seats from going to the BJP’s kitty, sounded exasperated with one of them telling the other to talk to his leadership and explain. Their contention being that there could be some tacit understanding between the SP and Congress on some seats even if BSP leader Mayawati remained recalcitrant.
Thus while rank and file of the three opposition parties feel stopping the BJP in the tracks is imperative to their 2022 political ambitions, the leaderships have somehow linked their survival in the state politics to their performance in the forthcoming elections, which they feel will have a direct bearing on their political health as a weakened BJP would leave political space for them to resurrect in 2022. They can then go full hog and win the assembly polls, which are still three years away.
The BJP leadership is obviously smiling though their spokesman Chandra Mohan says,“We are contesting this election on the issue of national security and image of our Prime Minister Narendra Modi.” But in private many of the party leaders concede the presence of an offensive Congress will help offset some of the damage that the alliance was causing to their party.
{{/usCountry}}The BJP leadership is obviously smiling though their spokesman Chandra Mohan says,“We are contesting this election on the issue of national security and image of our Prime Minister Narendra Modi.” But in private many of the party leaders concede the presence of an offensive Congress will help offset some of the damage that the alliance was causing to their party.
{{/usCountry}}Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has made it clear that besides winning seats in the upcoming elections, the party president Rahul Gandhi has tasked her to form a Congress government in Uttar Pradesh, where it has been out of power since 1989. SP national president Akhilesh Yadav, while refusing to comment on Congress campaign and selection of candidates says, “Congress is more interested in rebuilding the party than defeating BJP. Mayawati, who spurned the Congress offer for an alliance, too, is not sparing in flaying the grand old party.
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How are they damaging each other?
The three are reciprocating each other’s political gesture. The SP and BSP have decided not to field any candidate in Amethi and Rae Bareli, from where Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi will be seeking re-election to the Lok Sabha.
The Congress has reciprocated by staying away from seven such constituencies, including Mainpuri (Mulayam Singh Yadav), Kannauj (Dimple Yadav), Muzaffarnagar (Ajit Singh), Firozabad (Akshay Pratap Singh) and Azamgarh (Akhilesh).
Barring the family seats, a study of some constituencies indicate that one of the two factors working to the BJP’s advantage, despite anti-incumbency, is the sharp division in the party’s anti votes. The other factor is Modi and his resurrected popularity after Balakot air strikes.
Also Read | Lok Sabha elections 2019: Mayawati flays BJP, Congress at first gathbandhan rally in UP
Cutting into each other’s votes?
Bijnore is a constituency from where the two prominent Dalit women leaders of the country were elected MP -- former speaker Meira Kumar (Congress) and Mayawati (BSP) had won the elections from this Muslim dominated constituency in 1985 by-poll and 1989 polls. What paved their victory was over 40 per cent Muslims along with Dalits.
After SP-BSP formed an alliance, it was considered a safe seat for them as their candidates – Shahnawaj Rana and Malook Nagar -- had ended second and third in 2014.
Now the Congress has not only entered the scene but fielded a strong candidate, Naseemuddin Siddqui, a onetime close lieutenant of Mayawati. He has replaced by a weaker candidate Indira Bhati.
Badaun, which is considered a safe bet for SP, both because of sitting MP Dharmendra Yadav’s image and a formidable Yadav-Muslim combination, has turned tricky after the entry of Salim Shervani of Congress. It is generally believed that Salim may not win the seat but will certainly take away Muslim votes much to the chagrin of the SP leadership.
Congress’ UP president Raj Babbar was initially tipped to contest from Moradabad, known as the brass city which had also shot into limelight after it had elected Mohd Azhruddin in the 2009 polls. But Congress replaced Raj Babbar by Imran Pratapgarhiya, a Muslim who is again going to cut into the alliance votes.
However, most interesting is the Saharanpur seat from where Imran Masood, whom chief minister Yogi Adityanath had described as son-in-law of terrorist Masood Azhar, has been fielded by Congress. Imran is a strong candidate, who had lost the seat to BJP by a margin of 65000 votes in a highly polarized election.
Ironically Mayawati has also fielded a popular Muslim leader Haji Fazrul Rehman, banking on Jatav-Muslim combination. A graduate from Aligarh Muslim University, Rehman owns meat and food processing units.
Priyanka Gandhi’s visit to Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar had irked Mayawati no end as she saw it as a move to take away her Dalit support.
In fact the entire Rohelkhand region, which has a sizeable Muslim population, is becoming a bone of contention between the alliance and the Congress for the simple reason that while SP-BSP wish to retain their formidable vote bank of Muslim and Jatavs, the Congress is struggling to win them back before the 2022 elections. The BSP has decided to field senior party leader Girish Chandra Jatav from reserved Nagina seat.
A close aide of Mayawati, Jatav was earlier appointed zonal coordinator of the party in the West UP. The Congress has announced to field Omvati Devi Jatav.
Muslims in general wanted a grand alliance between the opposition to end any confusion.
Initially it was believed that Priyanka’s campaigning would help the opposition take away Brahmin votes from the BJP. But Congress, under her leadership, may dent both Dalit-Muslim votes, much to the discomfort of alliance. The party’s move to align with the Jan Adhikar Party is seen as a move to penetrate the Dalit vote bank.
The other examples where the opposition parties are damaging each other are Etawah, Sambhal, Fatehpur Sikri, Bahraich and Sitapur to name a few.
A senior Congress leader, who was against the alliance, said “we can’t put a lock on our party by playing second fiddle to the overbearing SP-BSP. We have been losing elections, but we have to resuscitate our original vote bank of Muslims, Dalits and Brahmins, which was grabbed by the alliance and BJP in 1990’s.
Truly , both SP and BSP, who have rotated power since the mainland parties lost much of their vote base to them in the 1990’s, are equally keen to repeat their performance of 2012 and 2007 assembly polls when they had won a majority in the state assembly. Congress revival would hurt their plans.
Their political space had drastically shrunk in the 2014 election, which was swept by the BJP.
In what could easily be described as the worst performance of all the three political parties, the BSP had even failed to open its account; the Congress had ended with two seats in their kitty and SP with five family seats.
Contrary to the general perception that people prefer national parties in the general elections while voting for regional parties in state polls, both have been able to make their mark in the Lok Sabha polls in successive elections. Even Congress managed to win 21 seats in 2009.
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