Uttar Pradesh: The 'cockpit' of Indian
politics By Sudha
Ramachandran
BANGALORE - The entry of Rahul
Gandhi in the electoral fray has revived interest in the
Congress party in the northern Indian state of Uttar
Pradesh. But whether this interest will translate into
votes and improve the Congress' electoral fortunes in
this politically crucial state remains to be seen.
Since the day Rahul filed his nominations from
the Amethi constituency, Congress party workers haven't
stopped celebrating. His participation - he is the fifth
generation of the Nehru-Gandhi family to enter politics
- is being described as a shot in the arm for a
demoralized Congress party in the state. A veteran
Congress leader gushed: "It is as if a draught of fresh
air has come into the dust and grime of Uttar Pradesh
politics."
Media reports suggest that the public
reception to the Nehru-Gandhi siblings, Rahul and
Priyanka notwithstanding, the capacity of the
Nehru-Gandhi name to draw votes in the elections that
span April and May might be limited to the family's
traditional bastions in the Rae Bareili-Amethi belt. The
Congress' shaky position in Uttar Pradesh is underscored
by the fact that in the 2002 assembly elections, the
Congress lost in all the segments of Rae Bareili, from
where Congress president Sonia Gandhi (Rahul's mother)
is now contesting, and won only one segment in Amethi.
There is a growing groundswell of support and
goodwill for the Congress in Uttar Pradesh. However, the
party seems to lack the organizational structure to
convert this goodwill to votes.
For the past 15
years, the Congress has been in the wilderness in Uttar
Pradesh. In the last general election in 1999, the
Congress won only 10 seats there, up from none in
elections the previous year. The party's organizational
machinery, badly battered by over a decade out of power,
is said to be non-existent in large swathes of this
state.
Uttar Pradesh is India's most populous
state. It sends 80 representatives to the 525-member
lower house of parliament, the Lok Sabha. Analysts have
often argued that Uttar Pradesh holds the key to power -
indeed, over half of India's prime ministers have come
from this state. Several high-profile candidates are
contesting from Uttar Pradesh - Prime Minister Atal
Bihari Vajpayee from his the Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP) from Lucknow, Sonia Gandhi from Rae Bareili, the
Samajvadi Party (SP) supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav from
Mainpuri, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati
and Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar
Joshi.
Uttar Pradesh might have produced the
most prime ministers and many aspiring prime ministers,
but it is among the poorest states in this country. It
ranks low on almost every socio-economic indicator and
has witnessed the most number of communal riots and
caste clashes in the county. It also has the dubious
distinction of sending the largest number of people with
criminal backgrounds to its state assembly.
The
four main parties in Uttar Pradesh - the BJP, the
Congress, the SP and the BSP - desperately sought
alliances with each other, but have failed to reach
agreement on seat-sharing. The electoral battle here is
a four-cornered contest. Some have suggested that the
battle is a three-cornered one in most constituencies,
with the Congress of some relevance only in about a
dozen constituencies.
As in previous elections,
caste and communal considerations rather than
development and the state of the economy will be the
main issues that determine how the electorate votes. The
BJP's previous calls for construction of a Hindu temple
on what was a mosque site at Ayodhya, which is part of
the Faizabad constituency in Uttar Pradesh, do not
strike a chord with Hindu voters today. In fact, Vinay
Katiyar, one of the leaders of the temple movement and
the sitting member of parliament from Faizabad, has
quietly shifted out of this constituency.
While
the BJP cannot expect to sail to power on the temple
issue, the mandir-masjid (temple-mosque) issue,
and more importantly, the potential this issue has to
trigger violence, is very much on the minds of Uttar
Pradesh's Muslim community. This and the anti-Muslim
pogrom in Gujarat in 2002 will be critical factors that
will influence the Muslim vote.
Muslims
constitute nearly 19 percent of the population of Uttar
Pradesh. The Muslim vote could prove decisive in at
least 36 constituencies where they constitute 40 to 45
percent of the electorate. Their vote could tilt the
balance in favor of a party.
Pre-1990, Muslims
voted for the Congress. Mulayam Singh Yadav's tough
posture against Hindu communalism and his image as a
"secular" leader saw the SP emerge as the party that
protected Muslim interests. Consequently, the Muslim
vote got divided between the SP and the Congress, with
the former getting the lion's share.
Uttar
Pradesh's Muslims are in a huge dilemma. Yadav's
appeasement of the BJP in recent months has raised
questions over its secular credentials and fueled
suspicions that the SP and the BJP might have struck
some sort of a deal. The BSP and BJP might have fallen
out, but that does not prevent the two patching up and
holding hands in the event of a hung parliament. Both
Yadav and Mayawati nurse ambitions of becoming the prime
minister, and they will sink to any level, including
extending support to the BJP, a party they have bitterly
reviled in the past.
Uttar Pradesh's Muslims are
drawn to the Congress. However, with the Congress not a
serious contender and given the sorry condition of its
organizational machinery in the state, they fear that a
vote for the Congress would end up a wasted vote. The
Muslim community could therefore end up dividing its
vote between the BSP and the SP.
Several Muslim
organizations, like the All-India Muslim
Majlis-e-Mushawarat - an influential body of Muslim
religious leaders - have appealed to the Congress and
the SP to contest together to ensure that "secular
votes" do not get divided.
The party that will
gain from the divided Muslim vote is the BJP.
Another factor that is expected to help the BJP
is the return of a senior leader and former chief
minister Kalyan Singh to its fold. Singh's differences
with the BJP national leadership during the last
election had proved costly to the BJP which lost at
least eight seats to the SP because of the Kalyan Singh
factor.
In 1999, the BJP had bagged the largest
number of seats, 29, followed closely by the SP with 26
seats. The BSP won 14 seats while the Congress fell by
the wayside with only 10 seats.
The outcome of
this poll could be on the lines of the 1999 general
elections, with the BJP likely to emerge as the largest
party in Uttar Pradesh. In the past, UP was described as
the "cockpit of Indian politics", with the party that
won in UP ruling the country. With the emergence of
coalition politics, the UP's key role in government
formation has diminished somewhat and other states have
emerged as important in determining who will rule India.
That would no doubt provide some hope to the
Congress' aspirations to form a government in New Delhi.
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