BATTLEGROUND UP - Part B
With a population of over 20 crore
people and encompassing an area of over 2.43 lakh sq km, Uttar Pradesh is the
big daddy amongst all states of the Indian Union. Though blessed with fertile
land and vast bounty of natural and human resource, the state has lagged behind
others in terms of infrastructure development and social progress. While UP has
given the country eight Prime Ministers since independence, ironically, the
state which has been the melting pot of various cultures in ancient and
medieval times, and its people have remained largely backward in many aspects.
A crucial reason for this has been the fact that the politics of UP has been
dominated by insignificant factors like caste and religion.
In the last assembly elections conducted
in the state in 2007, an important factor, apart from the ‘Social Engineering’
strategy that led to the BSP’s excellent showing was a strong wave of
anti-incumbency against the Mulayam Singh regime. With the BJP jostling with
infighting amongst its top leaders and the state unit of the Congress in
complete disarray, the anti-SP votes went into Maya’s kitty leading her to a
simple majority in the Uttar Pradesh Vidhan
Soudha. However, this time around the tables have turned on the BSP. With
the few development schemes of the Mayawati government being overshadowed by
the numerous corruption scandals, poll pundits have predicted that the party may find
it extremely tough to cross the 150 mark, let alone coming into power on its
own.
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| UP CM Mayawati |
The Samajwadis have undergone significant
changes in their ranks in the last five years that they were in the opposition.
After the Left parties pulled out their support to the UPA - I government on the
issue of the Nuclear bill, it was the SP that bailed the Central government out
with the help of its 39 MPs. However, with differences over the Congress on
seat sharing in the state, the SP joined the ‘Fourth Front’, comprising of the
RJD, LJP and SP. Although the party was reduced to 23 seats in the Lok Sabha, it salvaged some
pride by finishing at the top in the four way contest in Uttar Pradesh. In
January 2011, industrialist cum politician Amar Singh was expelled from the SP.
Known for his affluent lifestyle, links with Bollywood personalities and
accused in several cases of corruption, Singh’s exit has added more credibility
to the outfit.
The Samajwadi Party has launched a massive campaign,
titled ‘Ummed ki Cycle’ to
wrest back power from the BSP. Leading the poll bandwagon is Kannauj MP and the
party’s Yuvraj Akhilesh Yadav. The young leader’s
cycle rallies across different corners of the state have been a huge hit and
have witnessed sizable crowds. The state polls will be a crucial
phase in the young scion’s political career and a good showing by the SP will
firmly establish him as a prominent player in North Indian politics. The
foreign educated Akhilesh has also made it clear that his party is not against
computers or English, a paradigm shift from its earlier stand and an attempt to
reach out to the urban youth. However, he has maintained that emphasis will be
on Hindi and Urdu in case his father gets a fourth term as the state’s Chief
Minister.
However, the greatest worry for the SP is losing the
anti-BSP votes to a resurgent Congress. After being out of power for the last
22 years and reduced to a mere 21 seats in the last elections, the UP unit of
the party has been rejuvenated by the entry of Rahul Gandhi into the election
campaign. Though his charisma failed to impress the electorate in Bihar, Rahul
seems to have touched a chord with the people of UP. This was evident in the
superb performance of the Congress in the General elections where it bagged as
many as 21 seats surpassing all expectations.
Realizing that a strong presence in the state will
hold the key to his party’s future, the young leader has never missed any
opportunity to hit at the Mayawati government, be it the Bhatta-Parsaul
agitation against forcible land grabbing, lack of development or the
allegations of corruption against Behenji and her colleagues. In his
speeches, Rahul has blamed the successive SP, BSP and BJP governments in
Lucknow for the lack of infrastructure development in the state, ignoring the
fact that no worthwhile development was done during the 40 year long period
when the Congress was in power in the state. An alliance with Ajit Singh’s RLD
has also enhanced the Congress’s poll prospects. While her older brother is
campaigning across the nook and corner of the state, Priyanka Gandhi, the other
half of the famous Gandhi siblings is canvassing for the party’s candidates in
the family bastions of Amethi and Rae Bareli.
With so much media hype revolving around Rahul, many
are claiming that this could be the make-or-break elections for him A good
showing by the Congress will be regarded as a vote for Rahul rather than for
the Congress’s ideology by the loyal party workers and will be heralded as his
coming of age in the arena of Indian politics, thereby accelerating his ascent
towards the PM’s post. However, an average performance could end up giving more
ammunition to the BJP and other parties to ridicule the Congress’s poster boy.
Though there is little doubt that senior party leaders will defend Rahul baba at all costs in case of an electoral
drubbing, like they did after the Bihar polls in 2010, the whole situation will
surely be embarrassing for the Congress, to say the least.
Even the BJP is trying
hard to retain lost ground in the state. The saffron outfit which ruled the
state under Kalyan Singh and Rajnath Singh has been consistently losing ground
in the state over the last few years. For a party that began its journey to the
top of Indian politics from UP, it is ironically that today, the BJP finds
itself in such a hopeless position in the state. Strengthening the party in
Uttar Pradesh is one of the topmost priorities of the chief Nitin Gadkari. With
this objective in mind the party has made Hindutva firebrand and its OBC face, Uma
Bharathi as the spearhead of its election campaign. Also the party is trying
hard to woo back the upper caste votes that had gone to the BSP in the last
election.
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| Babu Singh Kushwaha |
Ever since the whole nation stood behind Anna Hazare
in the fight for a strong and effective Lokpal,
corruption has become a major political issue in every state that goes to polls
this year and Uttar Pradesh is no exception. With fresh allegations of
corruption cropping up at regular intervals against Behenji and her ministers, the Opposition has
upped its ante against the state government. Many will remember that during her
previous tenure, the UP CM was accused of accepting graft to give clearance to
the multi-crore Taj Corridor project, ignoring all
environmental concerns and the damaging effects it would have on the World
Heritage Monument. Though no significant progress has been made in the CBI
investigation looking into the scam, a slew of corruption charges against the Dalit
icon’s cabinet ministers and close aides might cut short her dream of retaining
the mega state.
Probably, the most well-known of all the scams that
have tarnished the BSP government is the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM)
scam in which top ministers, bureaucrats and their aides have been accused of
siphoning off an estimated Rs 10,000 crore released by the Central government
for improving health care in remote areas of the state. Moreover, the death of
several heath department officials under mysterious circumstances is been
widely viewed as an attempt to cover up the scam by eliminating key links that
lead to the actual perpetrators of the crime. Meanwhile, Union Rural
Development minister Jairam Ramesh has asked Mayawati to order a CBI investigation
into the embezzlement of funds meant for the implementation of the Mahatma
Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in several districts
of the state. The myriad cases of land grabbing, amassing of disproportionate
assets, misuse of power and public wealth have clearly put the elephant on the
back foot.
Rahul Gandhi is raking up the issue of widespread
corruption in the Maya government to get the Congress into power in Lucknow. In
every rally that the PM-in-waiting has addressed so far in the state, he has
accused the BSP’s Hatthi of
eating all money released by the UPA government for the welfare of the state.
On similar lines, the father-son duo of Mulayam Singh and Akhilesh Yadav has
also focused on the issue of corruption to catapult the SP back to power. The
BJP, which had earlier accused the Maya government of indulging in widespread
corruption, scored a self-goal by welcoming the former state minister Babu
Singh Kushwaha into the party after he was shown the door by Behenji following investigations into the NRHM
scam. Besides, hitting the credibility of the saffron outfit, it has also
damaged the morale of the cadre, who reports suggest, were against the move
taken unilaterally by the high command.
As always, instead of taking all the criticism lying
down, the ‘Iron Lady’ of Uttar Pradesh has launched a major campaign to get an
image makeover ahead of the polls. After a report by the CAG indicted the state
health and family welfare ministries in the NHRM scam, Mayawati dropped two of
her closest ministers, Babu Singh Kushwaha (Family Welfare) and Anant Kumar
Mishra (Health) from her cabinet and her party. Several tainted babus including Awadhesh Verma (Backward
Class Development), Fateh Bahadur Singh (Forest), Anis Ahmed (Minorities
Welfare & Haj), Awadhpal Singh Yadav (Animal Husbandry & Diary
Development), etc were sacked after the state Lokayukta started probing allegations against
them. Others like Shrinath (Chairman of UP SC/ST Commission), Disha Chamber
(Chairman of UP Scheduled Caste Finance Commission) and Ashok Kumar Dhore
(Water Resource) were dismissed for reasons like extra-marital affair,
indiscipline and misconduct respectively. Like the BJP in Uttarakhand, the BSP
has dropped nearly a third of all its sitting MLAs, including nearly 20
ministers in the incumbent government.
While it is true that
Maya’s record in the last five years in tackling corruption in UP has been
dismal, to say the least, no political party can claim moral high ground on
this issue. To counter Rahul tirade against the BSP government for being
inefficient to tackle this menace, Mayawati has hit back by highlighting the
several scandals that have plagued the Congress-led UPA government at the
Centre. The entry of Kushwaha into the BJP has dealt a severe blow to the
party’s campaign in the state and it has failed to derive any political mileage
out of the catch 22 situation that the Congress and the BSP find themselves
in. The Samajwadis have decided to play it safe and have slammed
its doors on all cabinet ministers and MLAs who wanted to join its rank after
being dumped by the BSP. Meanwhile, investigations into allegations of
corruption against Mulayam and his close relatives, including Akhilesh are
still in progress.
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| Dalit women |
Probably, the biggest issue in all elections in UP
so far, from the Lok Sabha elections to the Panchayat elections has been the caste factor.
Whether one accepts or not, it is rather sad that the caste of the candidate
decides whom the voter votes for in. Over the years, regional satraps like Maya
and Mulayam have become masters of this trade.
Behenjihas
emerged to be the most popular Dalitleader in India and her party's
vote bank is primarily the Harijan votes. In 2007, she reached out to
other communities, most notably the upper castes with her unique experiment of
'Social Engineering' - a brainchild of leader, Subhash Mishra, and came
to power with an absolute majority. The Brahmin leader was sidelined in the BSP
after he was accused of appointing his family members to party posts, leading
to protests from the Dalit leaders who felt that this would
cause the party's core vote bank to drift away. Soon their fears turned into
reality when a significant chunk of Dalit votes went to the Congress and the
BSP managed to get only 20 seats in the last general elections. Hoping to
retain her post and the to woo the Brahmin community, Mayawati has brought
back Mishra into the forefront ahead of the polls.
Like Mayawati, the SP's primary vote
bank is the Yadav and OBC community to which its leader
Mulayam belongs to. The Congress is also hoping to win the Dalit and OBC communities to its side,
with Rahul Gandhi making every effort possible to reach out to them. The BJP on
its part is going all out to bring back the Brahmin votes, which it had lost to the BSP in
2007, to its kiity. Also, by making OBC leader Uma Bharati the face of its
state campaign, the saffron outfit is hoping to increase its chances of winning
as many seats as possible. Besides, it has also risked roping in Babu Kushwaha
to win over the Kushwaha community that accounts for 3% of the
state's population.
More on the Uttar Pradesh Assembly Elections 2012
More on the Uttar Pradesh Assembly Elections 2012
(1) Zee News –Multi-crore MNREGA scam in
UP, alleges Ramesh (Link)
(2) Wikipedia – Taj Corridor Scam, UP
NHRM scam, Akhilesh Yadav (Link)
(3) BSP claims Mayawati sacked ministers
after survey – India Today (Link)
(5) Mayawati woos Brahmins in run up to
elections, projects SC Mishra as leader (Link)
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