Uttar Pradesh is a strange State where development is rarely an election issue. Slogans of basic amenities and economic progress are limited to poll campaigns. On the D-day, it is the candidates' caste that matters
What impact will the Aam Aadmi Party have in Uttar Pradesh, was the question persistently asked wherever I went to New Delhi from lucknow recently. Be it newspaper offices, the Press Club, Krishi Bhawan or at a relative’s house — everyone was eager to know how the AAP will fare in Uttar Pradesh — the most politically sensitive State of India. I have been saying that the AAP will have no real impact in Uttar Pradesh.
The reason the people in Delhi threw the AAP-question at me so frequently was understandable. All newspapers in the national Capital had AAP on the front pages. Fellow commuters in the Metro between HUDA City Centre and Rajiv Chowk could be heard discussing the merits and the de-merits of the AAP Government. Even friends, ostensibly killing time on a bright sunny day in a park over Palika Bazar, could be heard discussing why Mr Arvind Kejriwal’s Government would prove a disaster for Delhi. The AAP has reverberated in every nook and corner of Delhi, and thus it was normal when people threw question at me about the AAP’s future in national politics, particularly in Uttar Pradesh.
I have my reasons to believe that the AAP would not be able to make any dent in Uttar Pradesh in the 2014 lok Sabha election. Sitting 500 km from Delhi and watching the developments unfolding there as a neutral observer, I feel the AAP cashed in on the anti-corruption hype created by Anna Hazare with his Jan lokpal movement. People, fed up with corruption and political parties’ inability to rein in the bribe monster, came out on the streets carrying the Tricolour. The euphoria of patriotism had gripped the nation. Everyone — old, young, men and women — were out at the Ramlila ground and the Jantar Mantar in New Delhi in support of Mr Hazare. Similar sentiments echoed in other parts of the country.
Then came the gang rape incident on December 16, 2012. The anger of the people again spilled on the roads, and this time it was directed against the Sheila Dikshit Government. Mr Kejriwal used that sentiment to give wings to his political ambition. He had over a year’s time to form the AAP’s base in Delhi. His associates had NGOs and their networking helped to spread the AAP’s message across the metropolitan area of nation’s capital.
The recipe of the AAP’s success also depended on the urban culture of Delhi. To put it bluntly, Delhi does not have its own distinctive culture — unlike, say, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore and even lucknow. Delhi has a migratory population and it gets very easily swayed politically. If this was not true, how was it possible for a lady from Unnao in Uttar Pradesh (Ms Dikshit) to have ruled Delhi for 15 long yearsIJ The AAP’s campaign caught the eyes of Delhiites and it emerged as the second largest party post the Delhi election.
Uttar Pradesh is no Delhi. It is the biggest State of India, home to 20 crore people, and has more rural parliamentary constituencies than urban constituencies. The State, where caste writes the political fortune of the parties, Uttar Pradesh is all expected to give a rude jolt to the ambitions of the AAP. The political history of two decades suggests that only caste-driven parties who have entrenched well in rural areas, have dominated politics here. This is the reason as to why big national players like the Congress and the BJP have been reduced to non-entities while the caste-based Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party have flourished.
Uttar Pradesh is a strange State where development is rarely an election issue. Slogans like ‘Bijli, paani and sadak’ are limited only to election campaigns. But, on polling day, it is the caste — dalit, ahir, jat, kurmi, kayasth, brahmin, thakur et al, that matters. If development had been the issue, then the Rajnath Singh-led BJP Government would not have lost in 2002. It was this regime that had opened the doors of the Chief Minister’s residence for the aam aadmi. He regularly held panchayats, listened to the problems of the people, and solved them. Still, his party lost the election and the BJP seats climbed down from 180-plus to just 100. People had preferred caste over the issues of development.
In this scenario, how will the AAP survive, is anybody’s guess. There is no doubt that there is a great deal of hype that surrounds the AAP. But much of that excitement is in the media. It is also true that many retired bureaucrats, teachers, technocrats and doctors have joined the AAP in lucknow and other parts of the State. The bigger question is: How many of them have influence in rural areasIJ How many of them can motivate an unsophisticated villager to vote for the jhaaduIJ Moreover, the AAP does not have time to set up its structure in the State.
In Delhi the party got over a year’s time. The next election is just four months away. It’s doubtful that the AAP can get its act together by then and give surprising results in Uttar Pradesh.