Sugar daddy

V.P. Singh may have cut the cake. But Mulayam Singh Yadav can still have it. The UP chief minister, however, would have to ensure his reelection strategy is not based solely on gesture politics. The latest example of the wrong kind of strategy is the offer of a monthly honorarium for those jailed during the Emergency. The horror that was the Emergency doesn’t make this announcement any less devoid of real meaning. His rivals — the BSP, the BJP, an amorphous coalition of Congress, V.P. Singh and assorted UP leaders, and possibly a Muslim political entity — would expect him to do this kind of stuff and they, going by current evidence, would respond in kind. The trick for Mulayam is to go to the electorate with a governance card and while he may not know it, he’s already shown he can do that.

The encouragement given to private sugar mills has changed the dynamics of sugarcane cultivation in western UP, as The Sunday Express reported. Farmers’ incomes have increased, mills are competing to procure sugar, investment is holding out the real promise that better earnings are not just a one-season phenomenon. All this happened after years of government procurement agencies treating farmers like supplicants. This difference between treating development as the prerogative of a mai-baap sarkar and making it a private sector-led initiative holds the key to a different poll strategy for Mulayam.

UP is crying out for investment in everything — from education to infrastructure. There’s no shortage of private capital in this country. Plus, Mulayam is a dab hand at negotiations with industrialists. If he, and Amar Singh, can resist the lures of crony capitalism and creatively involve business leaders, he may yet show the electorate, like he has shown farmers in western UP, that he is capable of delivering. It would be unrealistic to expect the UP CM to give up old-fashioned strategies totally. But he can learn from Vasundhara Raje, who can insist on a conversion bill but still champion a programme that gets corporates to fund school midday meals.