Mulayam8217;s hard choice

Mulayam may well have to choose which side he wants to be on. Now that the dust has settled, in retrospect it seems that it might have been better for the SP chief to have come to an understanding with the Congress.

The underlying logic of the SP8217;s decision in the words of one of its leaders was to 8220;commit suicide immediately or to put up a fight and then go down dying.8221;

Mulayamp unlike Laloo Prasad Yadav, is not a cool player. The SP chief getsrattled very easily and his decisions are based not just on political imperatives. Had Mulayam stayed with V.P.Singh in 1990, he would have swept UP in the subsequent elections. But his personal antipathy towards V.P.Singh and his long association with Chandra Shekhar played an important role in his decisions. This time too Chandra Shekhar played an important role in Mulayam8217;s decision.

Mulayam8217;s grouse was that Sonia Gandhi did not broach the subject of UP with him during their 50-minute meeting. Mulayam had sought clarification from the Congress on eight points, which was supposed to give the Congress a chance to start a dialogue with him.

But the Congress did not bite the bait. Mulayam complained to Harkishen Singh Surjeet that fateful Saturday. Laloo conveyed this to Sonia and the Congress chief is believed to have expressed her surprise and said that Mulayam had not raised any of these issues with her. She expressed her willingness to talk to Mulayam in the presence of Laloo. But by that time it wastoo late and the SP had given two letters to the President taking a position against the Congress.

Mulayam may have told friends that he was surprised by the courtesies extended to him by Sonia, asking about the kind of routine he kept, the food he enjoyed eating and how he had come to be the fighter that he is. However, it is also a fact that Sonia has ignored Mulayam in recent months.

In constant touch with Surjeet, Laloo and others, she neither met Mulayam nor spoke to him during the last six months. She also refused to meet Amar Singh, who is credited with having considerable influence on Mulayam8217;s decisions.

Amar Singh had sought an appointment to see Sonia Gandhi a couple of months ago but was told by the secretariat at 10, Janpath that he should give his request in writing. A week after he did so, he was informed that the Congress chief could not meet him. This did not go down well with the general secretary of the Samajwadi party.

The truth is that unlike Laloo who had an arrangement with theCongress in 1998, and whose wife8217;s government was saved by the Congress decision to oppose the imposition of Article 356, Mulayam has had an uneasy relationship with the Congress.

There was a time last year when he had taken the lead in calling upon the Congress to pull down the BJP government. But after Pachmarhi and Hardwar, when the Congress dubbed him as casteist and corrupt, his tone changed.

Mulayam insisted on a coalition government knowing that Sonia could not lead it. For all his problems in giving support to a Congress government 8212; he has known for some time now that the minorities had started to look at the Congress as their protector against the BJP at the national level Mulayam could not risk a Government headed by a UPwallah.

It is not clear whether Sonia8217;s managers botched up the operation to bring around Mulayam or she was really not interested in doing business with him. Arjun Singh had asked Salman Khurshid to go easy with his statements on Mulayam just before the confidence vote.There were others who urged the UPCC chief to step up his attack on the SP President. It was around this time that the UPCC president declared that the party might go in for an alliance with the BSP which rattled Mulayam further.

It is a moot question whether Mulayam could have swung an understanding with the Congress. He had reportedly wanted the UP government brought down which could have been achieved, given its fragility, a sympathetic governor in Lucknow, but above a seat-sharing in the assembly elections.

Objectively speaking, an alliance between the two could have made the going tough for the BJP. But then the Congress does not trust Mulayam and has been ditched by him on an earlier occasion. He is also known to be an extremely hard bargainer when it comes to seats. For all his efforts last year, Surjeet could not manage more than one seat for the CPM in UP Varanasi when he was trying for an SP-JD-CPI-CPM alliance.

The fact is that it is a battle of turf between the Congress and the SPtoday. The Congress is trying to get back the Muslim vote, Mulayam to retain it.

It remains to be seen whether left to himself, he can go beyond the central part of the state where the Yadavs are concentrated around 8-9 per cent. He could manage 8-9 seats with the Yadav-Muslim combination for all Muslim unhappiness against him for preventing a secular government from taking power.

But he is known to be a street fighter who does not give up easily, and the ordinary backward Muslims who have viewed him as their protector may well stick to him this time round. It is to take advantage of the prevalent confusion that he pitched for polls rather than support a Sonia-led Government.

But if he feels that the minorities are completely deserting him, he will have to think twice. Elections 99 will be a tough one to fight alone.