UP versus UPA

If the Batla House encounter continues to spark confusion,noise and controversy,it is in no small measure due to the Congress. The facts of the incident on that day in New Delhis Jamia Nagar,September 2008,in which two suspected terrorists and a police officer were killed,are mired in a dispute thats been propped up by,among others,senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh. The general secretary in charge of Uttar Pradesh lends his considerable political weight to demands for a judicial inquiry taking on the version of the Congress-led UPA government thats been upheld by the court based on the findings of the National Human Rights Commission. Yet there is something terribly cynical about the re-enactment of the tableau of Digvijaya versus P. Chidambaram,or Party versus Government,on the eve of UP polls. Does the Congress really think doublespeak on terror is the way to court UPs Muslim Vote? Does it have such scant respect for the intelligence of the UP voter that it thinks she will be persuaded by a party at odds with its government on a sensitive national issue?

The UP polls present a new challenge to the political party but the Congresss insistent two-facedness on Batla House shows that its reflexes may not have kept pace. Beginning in the 1990s,Congress dominance in the state and at the Centre gave way to a more competitive polity in which new players sparred on caste and community issues. A little over two decades later,however,identity issues seem exhausted of their charge. In the run-up to Verdict 2012,the big curiosity is: Has UP reached the tipping point that Bihar appeared to cross in its last assembly election? Caste and community cleavages in that state were papered over to a large extent in Nitish Kumars second mandate. A government that signalled a sincerity of purpose had made the difference.

If a similar moment is to be midwived in UP,all players,including the Congress,will need to find a new way,a new metaphor,to appeal to the voter. By going into the polls with a divisive political agenda,or on the back of a party that gives the impression of sniping at its own government when it does not appear to collude with it to send out mixed messages on a crucial issue,the Congress will only end up confirming an older scepticism of the UP electorate.