In case the experiment goes kaput, such embarrassments are forgotten easily
Politics in the country has strange dimensions. But in Uttar Pradesh, there are truly strange bedfellows. Or else, how can one explain the Congress being given political resuscitation by the followers of an ideology (read Samajwadi Party) which scripted its waterloo and packed it off to its long hibernation in Uttar Pradesh’s realpoliticIJ
It was in 1989, when Samajwadi Party (SP) founder Mulayam Singh Yadav became the first non-Congress Chief Minister of the State, representing the Janata Dal (Socialist), albeit with the Congress crutch, to keep the burgeoning BJP at bay. Ironically, 27 years later, Mulayam Singh Yadav’s son, Akhilesh Yadav, undid what his father did. He joined hands with the Congress, thereby ensuring the revival of the latter in State politics.
The nascent marriage of convenience had been on the cards since young turk Akhilesh Yadav got embroiled with his uncle and Mulayam Singh Yadav confidant Shivpal Yadav over a slew of issues that underlined a basic difference of opinion among the old and the new guards.
After a series of unsasvoury expulsions of leaders, including of party general secretary Ram Gopal Yadav and even the Chief Minister, the two factions came up with respective lists of candidates for the imminent election.
By the time the internecine feud was finally disposed off by the Election Commission of India, which recognised Akhilesh Yadav as the SP leader, the young Chief Minister had analysed that his battle within had just begun.
With the Assembly election round the corner, Akhilesh Yadav knew he would have to fight severe internal dissension as Shivpal Yadav had considerable clout in the party’s structural brass-tacks. The taste of being in power being so addictive, Akhilesh Yadav reached out to the Congress for an alliance which was suited to and in the interest of both parties — more for the latter.
By getting the Congress on board, Akhilesh Yadav was, in fact, making a gamble with calculated risks to spread a strong message to the Muslim community. During his near-five-year tenure, Akhilesh Yadav has been rather measured in speaking on Muslim issues.
The Chief Minister had to face flak after the Muzaffarnagar riots when hundreds and thousands of Muslims were forced to live in refugee camps. The common refrain among the community was that the Akhilesh Government did precious little and almost failed to safeguard their interests. At the height of the family feud, Mulayam Singh Yadav, while baring his heart to a group of Muslim sympathisers, went to the extent of terming Akhilesh Yadav as “anti-Muslim” for failing to oversee the community’s interests.
Tom-tomming his Government’s development works and opportunity to the youth through a media blitzkrieg, Akhilesh Yadav chose to strategise, to dispel this image. And why not; his outfit could not do without the sizeable Muslim votes. With the SP usually branded as pro-Muslim by its rivals in the State, Akhilesh Yadav planned to use Congress’s acceptability among the minority community at the national level to send a strong message that the SP, under him, was still sympathetic towards the community.
The stitching of alliance with the ‘like-minded’ Congress would further assuage the Muslim sentiments, and in the process, strengthen Mulayam Singh Yadav’s winning combine of Muslim-Yadav votes.
On the other hand, for the Congress, the alliance was like a win-win offer. The party has been out of power for the last 27 years in Uttar Pradesh, its various wings have little cohesion, and more importantly, workers and leaders were in a state of frustration without any solution in sight.
But in case the experiment goes kaput, then naturally, the two parties will part ways. The Congress might not end up losing anything politically or electorally, except that its pride of being the oldest party, which buckled down for its revival, might be eroded a little. But in politics, such embarrassments are forgotten easily.