Wednesday, May 25, 2022

Opinion: Changing winds amid UP defections

By Telangana Today

Published: Published Date - 12:00 AM, Tue - 1 February 22

By Ratan Mani Lal

Defections prior to any election are not uncommon in Uttar Pradesh. In the Assembly elections in 2012 and 2017 too several leaders had quit one party and joined another, with varying results. But the defections this year have been remarkable in the sense that the many defectors are not only high-profile, but their crossover has led to major shifts in the perception war that rages on. The first round of polling is scheduled on February 10, but the defections by ambitious, disgruntled or marginalised politicians continue.

The most recent is the exit from the Congress of RPN Singh, a former union minister, and his entry into the Bharatiya Janata Party. He has been one of the prominent members of the group of dissident Congress leaders who have been waiting for months to hear from their top leadership. While Jitin Prasada of this same group made his move some months ago and now is a Minister in the UP government, Singh has also done it now.

No Surprise
In fact, Singh’s defection does not come as a surprise to most political leaders in Lucknow since he’d been sulking for months and his feelers to the BJP leadership were well-known. For that matter, the defection by many ministers and legislators of the BJP in the recent weeks, too, has not been entirely unexpected – even the entry into BJP of Aparna Yadav, the daughter-in-law of Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav was not been surprising at all.

Some days prior to this, Swami Prasad Maurya and some other ministers and legislators – who had shifted to the BJP in 2017 – went to the SP in what was considered a major setback to the BJP. But the BJP seems to have more than made up for the loss with Aparna and RPN Singh.

Such crossovers were seen on a large scale prior to the 2012 election when the then Chief Minister Mayawati heading a Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) government had expelled nearly two dozen legislators, ministers and party office bearers, and the BJP had given entry to most of them. Similarly, in 2017, there were many defections from the BSP and the SP into the BJP. The 2012 election saw Akhilesh Yadav romp home with a majority to head the SP government, while in 2017, it was advantage-BJP leading to the eventual appointment of Yogi Adityanath as Chief Minister.

While it is yet to be decided if Aparna Yadav and RPN Singh will contest the election, the SP marches on with its confidence relying on the anti-incumbency wave against the BJP, but the Congress is receding in the people’s perception. It is indeed another blow to the Congress which has been out of power since 1989 and has tried many alliances in recent years but failed every time.

Receding Congress
The Congress made its presence felt in the initial weeks with the aggressive campaigning by party scion Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. She organised women’s marathons, went on a State-wide Pratigya Yatra and motivated women activists in many places in the State to contest the election, since she had promised to reserve 40% tickets for women in UP. The promise has been kept in the candidate lists announced so far. The inclusion of the mother of the molestation victim of Unnao, a sportswoman and women activists in the list created the right kind of buzz. It was followed by the announcement of a youth-oriented manifesto that focused on education, employment, training and skill development.

So far so good, but then Priyanka receded into the background, and nothing has been heard from her since the unexpected joint press conference with her brother Rahul to announce the manifesto. A few days ago, her statement that the Congress was ready to support the Samajwadi Party in case the numbers required, further demoralised the party candidates and workers who had been enthusiastically preparing to take on the SP as well as the BJP. Now, RPN’s exit is another blow to the nascent campaign of the party in an election which so far appeared quite open as no “wave” as such is discernible.

While factors such as handling of Covid and containing its spread, distribution of free ration, crackdown on organised criminals, etc, seem to be working in the ruling party’s favour, the dissatisfaction among party workers and inaccessibility of bureaucrats at the district level have contributed to the unpopularity of the BJP. Other negative factors have been price rise, unemployment and stray cattle. In fact, stray cattle are causing a lot of anger among farmers across the State.

2007, 2012, 2017
Besides the very obvious political challenge of anti-incumbency, there is undeniable evidence of the people of the State being unforgiving for even the smallest missteps by the ruling party. A close study of the Assembly elections since 2007 reveals that the governments in power for full five years till 2007, 2012 and 2017 had won the mandate on the strength of the promises they made to the people on issues related to law and order, social justice, caste inequalities, infrastructure development, issues related to farmers’ welfare and power supply, among others.

While the loss of the ruling dispensation in 2007 was mainly because of the allegations of rising lawlessness, favouritism and failure to take all classes of society together, the loss in 2012 was mainly attributed to allegations of favouritism and poor law and order. The loss in 2017 was attributed to allegations of political favouritism and selective development. The failure to curb lawlessness by the then government was something that had weighed heavily on the minds of voters in 2017. The numbers may have a parallel story to tell, but in general, it was the people’s perception of the aforementioned points that caused the defeat of those parties.

As further lists of all political parties are awaited, it becomes clear that the parties may fall back on tried and tested combinations of caste, community, winnable defectors, in addition to other rhetoric. Moves of the BSP and the Congress, incidentally, are to be specially watched.