A road through Lucknow

Twenty years later,UP is again at a crossroad. There are at least three big shifts on the ground which might give prospective pollsters the biggest reasons for not trying to “poll” trends,and just exhale when the vote is counted in May.

The first is the BSP’s consolidation. In 2007,it became the single-largest party to rule UP after a decade and a half of fractured mandates. As Mayawati’s mentor,Kanshi Ram,said years ago,“Vote se lenge CM/PM,aarakshan se SP/DM (We will get the CM/PM through votes,and occupy the DM and SP’s posts through reservation).” The BSP has skilfully shown it can consolidate a loyal Dalit core and attach several layers of votes to be a viable alternative. In a caste-ridden state,the flexibility that this transferable and loyal voter core has given Mayawati is what makes her appear so formidable. But Mayawati’s growing ambitions need her to get voters beyond her traditional and comfort zone. Will she?

The other change in UP is how the BJP is placed today. With having scored a duck in 1984,it rose sharply to 51 seats in 1991 with nearly 33 per cent of the vote. In 1998,when the BJP-led NDA captured power at the Centre,UP accounted for almost a third of BJP’s seats in the Lok Sabha. However,since the 2004 general elections and through the 2007 state elections,the BJP has been morphing into a collapsed Congress. So you again have a situation where the BJP president (like his Congress counterpart) is an MP from UP,but after having also presided over a steady slide in numbers and organisational strength at the lower levels in the state.

The fact of the BJP being seen to be weak in UP does not only mean something for its own fortunes,and the NDA’s. A weak BJP in a state where the Muslim vote counts (in at least 25 per cent of the seats it is considerable) could change things. The Muslim vote having previously consolidated to defeat the BJP,with the party’s decline now,these electors can explore new possibilities.

The third big change in the state is the consolidation amongst backward castes that the ascent of the basically Dalit party,the BSP,has forged and forced. The “friendship” between two former UP CMs,Kalyan Singh and Mulayam Singh Yadav,is a big change in not just UP,but possibly national politics — the biggest,on the Babri issue,after the Masjid was destroyed. The Babri Masjid pretty much became a non-factor ever since it was pulled down in 1992. But with pictures of Kalyan Singh meeting the SP supremo,it appears to have got a new lease of life. Mulayam Singh appears to want to brazen it out and is trading charges with the Congress on “who was in power at the Centre when the Mosque came down”. But this relationship could probably be a tough one for the SP to handle since it has become a pivotal point not just for the fact of the Masjid,but the crude communal polarisation that went with it,the statements,the symbol that the Babri Masjid became for Muslims as embodying a sense of “foreignness”.

Kalyan Singh,being the chief beneficiary of the spurt in emotion and the deaths that the communal conflagration resulted in,cannot be just swept aside. Also,memories of his affidavit then,the first cabinet he formed and the centrality of the Babri project don’t help matters. Nor do reprints of reports of his cabinet dashing off to Ayodhya to thank higher powers for state power at the time.

While Mayawati has crafted her politics and alliances around a solid,loyal core,which is unlikely to waver for the next few years,Mulayam’s non-Yadav support base has been a loyal Muslim base,but loyal not because they got “power” (in fact,Mayawati has often been at pains to emphasise that she gives more tickets to Muslims than the SP,and offers a certain vote share for them to win by). But it was Mulayam’s tough stand and statement in 1990 (“Even a bird won’t dare flap its wings at Babri Masjid.”) that got him the Muslim vote for strong emotional reasons. But emotional votes can also disappear as quickly as they come,and Mayawati’s recent silence on both Kalyan Singh and the recent souring of terms between the SP and the Congress could be explained as glee or anticipation of voters swaying her way,or both.

Twenty years ago,Lalu Prasad and Mulayam were reportedly competing on who’d arrest L.K. Advani on his Rath Yatra. Mulayam was said to have been all set to do so,at Deoria,a border town in UP,close to where the Buddha spent his last days. Lalu pipped him,at Samastipur,in Bihar. That incident,and the fact how the arrest then launched Lalu as a “messiah” may help the SP understand better the reasons why partnering Kalyan could be such a gamble.

seema.chishti@expressindia.com