The city streets are splattered with hoardings displaying smiling faces of Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav with a tagline “UP ko yeh saath pasand hai” (UP likes this alliance).
The bonhomie between two leaders is not limited to hoardings but the warmth in their relations could be felt when they share dais during rallies and roadshows. But the friendship has so far not fully percolated down to the workers level where the Samajwadi Party and the Congress activists are still at daggers drawn.
Immediately after Rahul and Akhilesh held a joint rally in Kanpur recently, Samajwadi Party and Congress workers clashed with each other. Police had to intervene and workers of both the parties were released after warning.
The reason of the provocation was a comment from Samajwadi Party worker that the alliance has helped the Congress more by bringing the moribund outfit to life. The Congress leaders protested, and the war of words led to fisticuff and violence.
The alliance is still surging ahead on the prospects of transfer of votes and possibility of the consolidation of minority community behind it. But both parties will need to iron out a lot of issues in the coming days to maximise the gains of their unity.
SP spokesman Rajendra Chaudhry said there can be some problems here and there, but these can be rectified. “We are in touch with Congress leaders. Senior leader Ashok Gehlot is camping here to iron out these differences,” he said.
Nomita P Kumar of Giri Institute of Development Studies in lucknow said in technical terms the alliance is in its infancy stage. “You cannot expect workers to resolve their inherent apathy against each other overnight and present a joint front,” she said.
The difference between Congress and SP is not only visible at worker level but it is perceptible at party level, too. Both parties joined hands with a promise to bring Common Minimum Programme, but this promise is yet to take shape. Both the parties have taken out their separate poll manifesto stressing on their ideology and principles.
“In the absence of CMP, workers exactly do not say what they have to tell masses. The SP leaders are talking about Chief Minister’s achievements but what’s about Congress workers. They cannot say the SP Government has improved law and order. They cannot say infrastructure has improved and Akhilesh has transformed Uttar Pradesh into Uttam Pradesh as SP leaders are claiming,” a senior Congress leader said.
“If we had a CMP, we would have stressed on that but now we are only talking about notebandi and corruption of Mayawati,” he said.
To present a unified face both alliance partners had decided to hold joint Press conferences at district level every day. “This too would had sent a good message. But nothing of sort happened even as first phase of polling is from February 11,” the leader said..
This confusion is visible in ticket distribution, too. There are around 22 seats where Congress and SP candidates are pitted against each other. The situation is so bad in some parts of western and central UP that sitting legislators of these parties are finding it hard to save their seats.
At Shamli, sitting Congress law maker Pankai Mallick is involved in a tough fight against Anish Chauhan, son of senior SP leader Virendra Gujjar. In lucknow, Health Minister Ravidas Mehrotra of Samajwadi Party is pitted against Congress Mahroof Khan, while in Amethi Transport Minister in Akhilesh Yadav’s Cabinet Gyatri Prajapati is expected to get a tough fight from Congress’ Amita Singh, a former lawmaker and wife of Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh.
Similar conflict is visible in seats, including Behta in Saharanpur, Purkazi in Muzaffarnagar, Chandpur in Bijnore, Kol in Aligarh, Maharajpur and Arya Nagar constituencies of Kanpur, Jaidpur in Barabanki, Sahibabad and Muradnagar in Ghaziabad, Mahrauni in lalitpur.
While these friendly fights among workers of both parties have affected the alliance, both parties are confident that the voters will see the larger picture and ignore this minor issue.