The Samajwadi Party’s move of luring the minorities to its side with an eye to the 2014 lok Sabha polls may or may not bring instant results but it has certainly given the BJP an opportunity to cash in on polarisation of the Hindu votes.
Ostensibly, the party’s projection of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as its poster boy and Prime Ministerial candidate has lighted a ray of hope among the upper caste voters as they have the option of returning to their traditional party. In the past, the Hindu votes had drifted away from their parent party as a result of the continuous decline in the electoral prospects of the party in Uttar Pradesh.
In the past, the BSP had launched an aggressive campaign to wean away the upper caste votes, especially the Brahmins to its side. The blue brigade had to a large extent succeeded in its designs as the Mayawati Government had won the 2007 Vidhan Sabha elections with a thumping majority. The party at that time felt that its success was based on securing votes from all sections, primarily the Brahmins. However, BSP received a jolt in the previous lok Sabha elections and it dissolved its Brhamin bhai-chara committees as it felt that upper castes had strayed away.
Now once again the blue brigade has revived its Brahmin committees to attract the upper castes votes. But the situation has undergone a sea change as the BJP has given the party a drastic facelift with Modi being its election campaign committee head.
A senior BJP MP did not hesitate in stating the manner in which “the Samajwadi Party was getting impatient as the lS polls are drawing near. The main reason for this being the fear of the anti-incumbency factor looming large over the Government. No wonder the Akhilesh Yadav Government is stepping up its efforts of appeasing the minority voters so that it leaves nothing to chance. A recent example can be cited from the raging controversy over the suspension of the IAS officer Durga Shakti Nagpal. The SP Government went out of its way to safeguard the interests of the minorities, though at the cost of taking a confrontation with the Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and the UPA Government.”
Commenting on the SP’s pro-Muslim stance, State BJP president laxmikant Bajpai remarked that the “Akhilesh Yadav Government is pursuing its Muslim appeasement policy in an unreasonable manner. He explained how the BJP was always blamed for being a communal force but it was actually the Samajwadi Party which was blatantly playing the communal card whether it is distribution of scholarships meant for Muslim girls or boundaries for only Muslim graveyards. The SP Government is playing with national interests by promising to release Muslim youth booked on terror charges,” he added
The BJP State party chief said, “We will expose the Samajwadi Party’s moves of giving favours to the minority community with an eye on the votes”.