Which way will UP go ?

"A week is too long in politics", said Harold Wilson, the late British Prime Minister. Well, this caution needs to be remembered while predicting the outcome, especially of an election. So the prudent thing to do, with the U.P. Assembly elections slated for early 2017, is to present different scenarios for them.

Whatever the final results, one thing is certain that the State will send the largest number of members, as many as 80, to the Lok Sabha, or the Lower House of Parliament 2019. No wonder, the UP polls may set the tone for the Parliament elections of 2019.The National Democratic Alliance Government (NDA) headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi will have completed three years by the time a new dispensation is in place in the State.

The present Samajwadi Party (S.P.) Government led by Akhilesh Yadav, son of veteran leader Mulayam Singh Yadav, won an overwhelming majority in the 2012 Assembly elections defeating Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which has its support base basically among Dalits. When the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lost its sheen and lacked a leader with mass appeal as was Kalyan Singh, the State became a battle ground between the SP and the BSP with the BJP and the Congress relegated to the third and fourth positions.

But the political climate here has undergone dramatic change in the wake of Narendra Modi storming to power at the Centre in 2014. The State has been witnessing a roller coaster game of politics since then. The Bihar Assembly elections soon after those to the Lok Sabha went horribly wrong for the BJP.

A rash of communal riots in U.P., the worst in Muzaffarnagar in its western part, also tarnished the secular image of the Samajwadi Party and its Government. A massive eruption of violence in Mathura at a camp of a sect owing allegiance to Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose was another blow to the Samajwadi Party, some of whose leaders are said to have patronized the cult leader who himself belongs to the Yadav community.

In the changing circumstances, the stock of Mayawati seemed to be going up. Though the BSP leader was. perceived to be an epitome of corruption, she had the image of a strong leader who dealt with criminals and Mafiosi with iron hands. The view began to gain ground that at least law and order was not so bad during her regime. Till the beginning of 2016, public opinion was building up in favour of Mayawati as the BJP neither had any mass leader nor was there any overarching cause that could sweep it back to power. The Congress Party with its abysmally depleted political base was not even in the reckoning
However, things began to change very fast. Realizing the weakness and unpopularity of the Samajwati Party, Akhilesh Yadav adopted a twopronged strategy. First, he embarked on a policy of development by launching a number of showcase projects and fast-tracked the pending ones. Two of the pet projects of the youthful Chief Minister are the Lucknow Metro, which has begun its trial runs and the country's longest expressway of 302 km connecting Agra and Lucknow which has already been inaugurated ahead of the Assembly elections.
Well, everything was apparently going his way as he tried to emerge out of the shadow of his father and the clutches of his scheming relatives, especially his uncle Shivpal Singh Yadav. Akhilesh Yadav was keen on controlling law and order. But he could not crack down on many of the musclemen in the State who had Shivpal Singh Yadav's patronage. Finally, push came to shove with Shivpal Yadav deciding to induct the don of eastern U.P., Afzal Ansari, into the party.

Akhilesh Yadav put his foot down. He opposed Ansari's induction tooth and nail. This led to a showdown with his uncle. Shivpal on his part was determined to have his way and he roped in his elder brother and party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav. Akhilesh Yadav was in no mood to listen. As a last resort he dropped Shivpal Yadav, who was a Minister, from the Cabinet. This set off a chain of tussles among family members. Ram Gopal Yadav, a cousin of Mulayam Singh, sided with the Chief Minister. Ram Gopal, who is a Member of the Rajya Sabha, was thrown out of the party by Shivpal in his capacity as president of the State party unit.

Even before the public spat between the Chief Minister and the other family members relations between them were hardly hunkydory. Akhilesh Yadav and his step brother, son of Mulayam Singh Yadav by his second wife, have never seen eye to eye with each other. Apart from the sibling rivalry, the Chief Minister was never comfortable with the idea of bringing in Amar Singh who had been expelled from the party by Mulayam Sikngh Yadav. But Singh managed to cosy up to the Yadav patriarch with the help of Shivpal in the teeth of opposition from the Chief Minister.

Amar Singh was, thus, rehabilitated in the party, which became a sore point with the former. The Chief Minister had a strained relationship also with the prominent Muslim face of the party, Azam Khan, another State Minister. The youthful Chief Minister with his apparently clean image and plank of development hoped to trounce both Mayawati's BSP and the BJP. His strategists thought that people

would applaud Akhilesh as he stood up to his own clan in pursuit of good governance. If the Chief Minister could take action against his folks, it was argued, people would place their trust in him. The calculation was not wide off the mark as happenings in Mayawati's camp indicated.
Angry over the authoritarianism of Mayawati and her allegedly blind pursuit of money, the simmering discontents began to take the form of a political mutiny. Swami Prasad Mauray and R.K. Chaudhary, two top

BSP leaders, revolted against Mayawati. Maurya, a Kushwaha, member of a backward community claiming its lineage from Emperor Ashoka's, and R.K. Chaudhary, himself a Dalit, left the party along with a huge number of their supporters.

While Maurya joined the BJP, Chaudhary jumped on the bandwagon of the Samajwadi Party. Both are very powerful leaders in their own communities. To add salt to injury, Brijesh Pathak and Ravindra Nath Tripathi, two prominent Brahmin leaders, also deserted Mayawati. Pathak was a bigger blow to her as, apart from Satish Chandra Mishra who had been with her, the former was a conspicuous Brahmin face in the party. The BSP, which had swung from one extreme of Brahmin bashing to wooing the Brahmins, has lost its

support base among the politically conscious community. Neither is Dr. Dauji Gupta with the BSP. The three-time Mayor of Lucknow is a noted Ambedkar and Buddhist scholar and was a close associate of the late Kanshi Ram. Dr. Gupta, a rare politician from the Hindi belt, speaks
Tamil and several other languages. His appeal prevails among the Vaishayas (trading community), backwards and Dalits. His absence from the party is also a big loss for the BSP.

The backward castes estimated to be 54 per cent of the State population are the biggest block of votes in Uttar Pradesh. But here too, there are intracaste rivalries. The non-Yadav communities have hardly any love lost for Yadavs

The Dalits too are not a cohesive group. Among the 22 per cent Dalit population of Uttar Pradesh, only the Chamars are strong supporters of BSP. The Pasis, the second most powerful Dalit caste, have never been enamoured of Mayawati. It is clear from the fact that, of the 85 reserved seats in the U.P. Assembly, the BSP could win only 15 in 2012, while 58 went to the Samajwadi Party
Interestingly of the 85 reserved seats for the Scheduled Castes, as many as 28 went to the SP and only one each to the BJP and the BSP.The BSP suffered another major setback after the episode involving Daya

Shankar Singh, a BJP leader, and his wife Swati Singh. The BJP leader had reportedly made an offensive comment on Mayawati. The BJP immediately expelled Singh from the party for six years. But supporters of Mayawati led by her Man F r i d a y , Nasimuddin S i d d d i q u i , p u b l i c l y a b u s e d Singh's wife and his minor daughter. This turned the tide against Mayawati, alienating the Thakur and other upper caste communities from the BSP. As a sweet revenge, BJP has made Swati Singh President of women's wing of the party
In terms of caste and religion, the appeal of both the BSP and Samajwadi Party is limited. While the BSP's support base is rooted among the Chamar or Jatav community, the SP mainly depends on Yadavs.
The BSP, the SP and to some extent the Congress are vying for the Muslim vote, which constitutes about 18 per cent in Uttar Pradesh. The general perception is that Muslim votes favour candidates who can defeat their BJP rivals.
Even before the political parties in the State could consolidate their position, Prime Minister Narendra Modi threw a bombshell in the form of demonitisation on November 8. The feedback from ground zero is that 80 per cent of the people are rooting for the BJP, especially the poor.
According to a seasoned political analyst in Lucknow, there is a moment of Schadenfreude for the party-- a sense of pleasure at the sight of its rivals' discomfiture.

In spite of the long queues in front of banks and ATMs, the general public is overwhelmingly in support of demonitisation which they see as an epic battle against the rich people with their ill-gotten money. If the Centre is able to mitigate the shortage o currency notes by the time the U. P. elections take place, there is every chance that BJP will storm to power. But there is o n e imponderable, i n v o l v i n g reports of negotiations among the SP, the Congress and Ajit Singh to forge an alliance to make a

winning combination. The idea behind it is that the Muslim votes will not be split among these three parties. But t h i s assumption failed in 2014 when the Modi wave swept the elections in U t t a r Pradesh. The idea of the Muslim vote
factor was exposed with not a single Muslim candidate from any political party being able to make it to the Lok Sabha from Uttar Pradesh.
Notwithstanding the warning of Harold Wilson, one thing increasingly suggests itself: the BJP with the Modi image still dominant, while the Muslim, backward and Dalit communities are yet to find their electoral focus, appears to be in winning mode in U. P. as the most populous State is poised to enter a decisive political phase.



		EDITOR'S MAIL MATTERS OF PUBLIC POLICY NOTEBANDI DRAMA NOTEBANDI DRAMA FRANKLY SPEAKING POLL 2017 TAMIL NADU POLITICS TAMIL NADU POLITICS REALPOLITIK POLITICAL RESERVATION KASHMIR WATCH A HOLLOW RITUALRY ENVIRONMENTAL FALLOUT BABY TRAFFICKING AVIATION NOTE HITS & MISSES SPORT NOTEBOOK NEW PAK ARMY CHIEF PAGE FROM HISTORY MIDDLE EAST SCENE US WATCH NEW WHITE HOUSE INDO-VIETNAMESE TIES BOOK BAZAAR BOOK BAZAAR GENDER VIOLENCE SIGNS OF THE TIMES YOGA IN DAILY LIFE-IX ART OF LIVING Issue:January' 2017 Subscribe Now	POLL 2017 Which way will UP go ? "A week is too long in politics", said Harold Wilson, the late British Prime Minister. Well, this caution needs to be remembered while predicting the outcome, especially of an election. So the prudent thing to do, with the U.P. Assembly elections slated for early 2017, is to present different scenarios for them. Whatever the final results, one thing is certain that the State will send the largest number of members, as many as 80, to the Lok Sabha, or the Lower House of Parliament 2019. No wonder, the UP polls may set the tone for the Parliament elections of 2019.The National Democratic Alliance Government (NDA) headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi will have completed three years by the time a new dispensation is in place in the State. The present Samajwadi Party (S.P.) Government led by Akhilesh Yadav, son of veteran leader Mulayam Singh Yadav, won an overwhelming majority in the 2012 Assembly elections defeating Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which has its support base basically among Dalits. When the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lost its sheen and lacked a leader with mass appeal as was Kalyan Singh, the State became a battle ground between the SP and the BSP with the BJP and the Congress relegated to the third and fourth positions. But the political climate here has undergone dramatic change in the wake of Narendra Modi storming to power at the Centre in 2014. The State has been witnessing a roller coaster game of politics since then. The Bihar Assembly elections soon after those to the Lok Sabha went horribly wrong for the BJP. A rash of communal riots in U.P., the worst in Muzaffarnagar in its western part, also tarnished the secular image of the Samajwadi Party and its Government. A massive eruption of violence in Mathura at a camp of a sect owing allegiance to Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose was another blow to the Samajwadi Party, some of whose leaders are said to have patronized the cult leader who himself belongs to the Yadav community. In the changing circumstances, the stock of Mayawati seemed to be going up. Though the BSP leader was. perceived to be an epitome of corruption, she had the image of a strong leader who dealt with criminals and Mafiosi with iron hands. The view began to gain ground that at least law and order was not so bad during her regime. Till the beginning of 2016, public opinion was building up in favour of Mayawati as the BJP neither had any mass leader nor was there any overarching cause that could sweep it back to power. The Congress Party with its abysmally depleted political base was not even in the reckoning However, things began to change very fast. Realizing the weakness and unpopularity of the Samajwati Party, Akhilesh Yadav adopted a twopronged strategy. First, he embarked on a policy of development by launching a number of showcase projects and fast-tracked the pending ones. Two of the pet projects of the youthful Chief Minister are the Lucknow Metro, which has begun its trial runs and the country's longest expressway of 302 km connecting Agra and Lucknow which has already been inaugurated ahead of the Assembly elections. Well, everything was apparently going his way as he tried to emerge out of the shadow of his father and the clutches of his scheming relatives, especially his uncle Shivpal Singh Yadav. Akhilesh Yadav was keen on controlling law and order. But he could not crack down on many of the musclemen in the State who had Shivpal Singh Yadav's patronage. Finally, push came to shove with Shivpal Yadav deciding to induct the don of eastern U.P., Afzal Ansari, into the party. Akhilesh Yadav put his foot down. He opposed Ansari's induction tooth and nail. This led to a showdown with his uncle. Shivpal on his part was determined to have his way and he roped in his elder brother and party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav. Akhilesh Yadav was in no mood to listen. As a last resort he dropped Shivpal Yadav, who was a Minister, from the Cabinet. This set off a chain of tussles among family members. Ram Gopal Yadav, a cousin of Mulayam Singh, sided with the Chief Minister. Ram Gopal, who is a Member of the Rajya Sabha, was thrown out of the party by Shivpal in his capacity as president of the State party unit. Even before the public spat between the Chief Minister and the other family members relations between them were hardly hunkydory. Akhilesh Yadav and his step brother, son of Mulayam Singh Yadav by his second wife, have never seen eye to eye with each other. Apart from the sibling rivalry, the Chief Minister was never comfortable with the idea of bringing in Amar Singh who had been expelled from the party by Mulayam Sikngh Yadav. But Singh managed to cosy up to the Yadav patriarch with the help of Shivpal in the teeth of opposition from the Chief Minister. Amar Singh was, thus, rehabilitated in the party, which became a sore point with the former. The Chief Minister had a strained relationship also with the prominent Muslim face of the party, Azam Khan, another State Minister. The youthful Chief Minister with his apparently clean image and plank of development hoped to trounce both Mayawati's BSP and the BJP. His strategists thought that people would applaud Akhilesh as he stood up to his own clan in pursuit of good governance. If the Chief Minister could take action against his folks, it was argued, people would place their trust in him. The calculation was not wide off the mark as happenings in Mayawati's camp indicated. Angry over the authoritarianism of Mayawati and her allegedly blind pursuit of money, the simmering discontents began to take the form of a political mutiny. Swami Prasad Mauray and R.K. Chaudhary, two top BSP leaders, revolted against Mayawati. Maurya, a Kushwaha, member of a backward community claiming its lineage from Emperor Ashoka's, and R.K. Chaudhary, himself a Dalit, left the party along with a huge number of their supporters. While Maurya joined the BJP, Chaudhary jumped on the bandwagon of the Samajwadi Party. Both are very powerful leaders in their own communities. To add salt to injury, Brijesh Pathak and Ravindra Nath Tripathi, two prominent Brahmin leaders, also deserted Mayawati. Pathak was a bigger blow to her as, apart from Satish Chandra Mishra who had been with her, the former was a conspicuous Brahmin face in the party. The BSP, which had swung from one extreme of Brahmin bashing to wooing the Brahmins, has lost its support base among the politically conscious community. Neither is Dr. Dauji Gupta with the BSP. The three-time Mayor of Lucknow is a noted Ambedkar and Buddhist scholar and was a close associate of the late Kanshi Ram. Dr. Gupta, a rare politician from the Hindi belt, speaks Tamil and several other languages. His appeal prevails among the Vaishayas (trading community), backwards and Dalits. His absence from the party is also a big loss for the BSP. The backward castes estimated to be 54 per cent of the State population are the biggest block of votes in Uttar Pradesh. But here too, there are intracaste rivalries. The non-Yadav communities have hardly any love lost for Yadavs The Dalits too are not a cohesive group. Among the 22 per cent Dalit population of Uttar Pradesh, only the Chamars are strong supporters of BSP. The Pasis, the second most powerful Dalit caste, have never been enamoured of Mayawati. It is clear from the fact that, of the 85 reserved seats in the U.P. Assembly, the BSP could win only 15 in 2012, while 58 went to the Samajwadi Party Interestingly of the 85 reserved seats for the Scheduled Castes, as many as 28 went to the SP and only one each to the BJP and the BSP.The BSP suffered another major setback after the episode involving Daya Shankar Singh, a BJP leader, and his wife Swati Singh. The BJP leader had reportedly made an offensive comment on Mayawati. The BJP immediately expelled Singh from the party for six years. But supporters of Mayawati led by her Man F r i d a y , Nasimuddin S i d d d i q u i , p u b l i c l y a b u s e d Singh's wife and his minor daughter. This turned the tide against Mayawati, alienating the Thakur and other upper caste communities from the BSP. As a sweet revenge, BJP has made Swati Singh President of women's wing of the party In terms of caste and religion, the appeal of both the BSP and Samajwadi Party is limited. While the BSP's support base is rooted among the Chamar or Jatav community, the SP mainly depends on Yadavs. The BSP, the SP and to some extent the Congress are vying for the Muslim vote, which constitutes about 18 per cent in Uttar Pradesh. The general perception is that Muslim votes favour candidates who can defeat their BJP rivals. Even before the political parties in the State could consolidate their position, Prime Minister Narendra Modi threw a bombshell in the form of demonitisation on November 8. The feedback from ground zero is that 80 per cent of the people are rooting for the BJP, especially the poor. According to a seasoned political analyst in Lucknow, there is a moment of Schadenfreude for the party-- a sense of pleasure at the sight of its rivals' discomfiture. In spite of the long queues in front of banks and ATMs, the general public is overwhelmingly in support of demonitisation which they see as an epic battle against the rich people with their ill-gotten money. If the Centre is able to mitigate the shortage o currency notes by the time the U. P. elections take place, there is every chance that BJP will storm to power. But there is o n e imponderable, i n v o l v i n g reports of negotiations among the SP, the Congress and Ajit Singh to forge an alliance to make a winning combination. The idea behind it is that the Muslim votes will not be split among these three parties. But t h i s assumption failed in 2014 when the Modi wave swept the elections in U t t a r Pradesh. The idea of the Muslim vote factor was exposed with not a single Muslim candidate from any political party being able to make it to the Lok Sabha from Uttar Pradesh. Notwithstanding the warning of Harold Wilson, one thing increasingly suggests itself: the BJP with the Modi image still dominant, while the Muslim, backward and Dalit communities are yet to find their electoral focus, appears to be in winning mode in U. P. as the most populous State is poised to enter a decisive political phase.