Poor administration, deteriorating law and order, crimes against women, rising unemployment or caste and communal unrest바카라Uttar Pradesh isn바카라t a stranger to any of these. Successive state governments have struggled to reverse this perception, and failed. The National Crime Records Bureau places UP among the top five states in almost all categories of heinous crime바카라rape, murder or crimes against the scheduled caste. Take the Hathras case as an instance. A 19-year-old Dalit woman was allegedly gang-raped and strangled by four upper-caste men and she died in a Delhi hospital. Another 22-year-old Dalit woman was gang-raped in Balrampur days later. Soon after, three minor Dalit sisters were attacked with acid by an unidentified man in their home in Gonda. Yet, with 17 months to go before the UP assembly elections, there바카라s no sign of anger among the masses against the government. Why? Is it because there바카라s no Opposition to help the people ventilate their anger? Where is the Opposition in the state famous for its acutely political electorate?
바카라The biggest advantage that Yogi Adityanath and the BJP have in UP today is the complete absence of an Opposition,바카라 political analyst Sharat Pradhan tells Outlook. Mayawati바카라s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Akhilesh Yadav바카라s Samajwadi Party (SP)바카라the two key Opposition forces in UP바카라have been 바카라absolutely dormant바카라, while the Congress, long relegated to a fringe outfit in the state바카라s politics, 바카라is still down in the dumps despite recent attempts at revival바카라, says Pradhan. In a 403-member assembly, the BJP has an absolute majority. In the March 2017 state polls, it won 312 seats while the SP and Congress바카라allies in the election바카라took just 47 and seven seats respectively. The BSP too was decimated, finishing with just 19 seats. And now, with its rivals struggling for electoral resurgence, the BJP has been exuding confidence of sweeping the 2022 assembly elections too.
Keshav Prasad Maurya, the state바카라s deputy chief minister, brushes aside all allegations of poor governance and deteriorating law and order. 바카라Development work in UP have been moving ahead rapidly. We are working to ensure a crime-free UP where every section of society feels safe,바카라 he says, while accusing the Congress of 바카라misguiding people by politicising issues like the Hathras case and farm laws바카라 they have no other work and they will continue to sit in Opposition바카라.
The BJP had promised to rid UP of crime, ensure swift and effective justice, and the government indeed went after criminals. Result: as many as 122 alleged criminals were shot dead (including gangster Vikas Dubey), more than 2,000 wounded and about 13,000 held in 6,126 police 바카라encounters바카라 between March 2017 and July 2020. But in the administrative lexicon, 바카라criminal바카라 is also a synonym for dissenters. Through the past two years, a wide array of public-spirited individuals바카라from Dr Kafeel Khan and journalist Prashant Kanojia to anti-CAA activists Sadaf Jafar, Deepak Kabir, retired IPS officer S.R. Darapuri바카라were jailed on sedition charges for dissenting against the government.
Another dissenting voice the BJP singles out is the Congress바카라quite an irony because the party hasn바카라t been a formidable political force for nearly three decades in the state. The BJP바카라s attacks against the SP and BSP are, by comparison, far more tepid. Since 1991, pushed to the fringe by an ever ascendant politics of mandal and kamandal, the Congress has unsuccessfully tested various revival strategies in UP. In the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, Rahul Gandhi succeeded partially when the Congress managed to wrest 21 of the state바카라s 80 seats바카라its best tally since 1991. The gains, however, were lost quickly. By the 2012 assembly polls, the Congress was on a downward spiral again.
Akhilesh Yadav was in London, where he took his family on a holiday in 2018 (as this photo shows).
On January 23 last year, when Rahul바카라then Congress president바카라appointed sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra as the party바카라s general secretary in-charge of eastern UP (Jyotiraditya Scindia was given charge of western UP), he conceded that he wasn바카라t expecting any quick results. Rahul was right. Priyanka couldn바카라t even help him retain his Amethi seat in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. In the months that followed, Priyanka바카라s efforts at reviving the Congress in UP were sporadic. She hit the right notes last July with her protest against the brutal caste violence in Sonbhadra, but failed to build a statewide agitation. Earlier this year, she joined cause with the anti-CAA protestors in Lucknow. But the coronavirus-induced lockdown derailed her momentum.
The past six months have witnessed a more active Priyanka. That the SP and BSP leaderships have been largely absent has only helped her. The migrant crisis during the Covid-lockdown allowed Priyanka to embarrass the state government. The fierceness of the Gandhi siblings during the Hathras case has once again let Priyanka keep the Congress in news in UP. With Akhilesh holidaying in London (he returned to Lucknow this week) and Mayawati choosing against meeting the victim바카라s family or even sending her envoy Satish Mishra to Hathras, Priyanka was the focus of media and political attention. But the big question is: whether this frenzy of activity in the Congress will sustain until the assembly polls? 바카라There is a vast constituency of people who are unhappy with the BJP. If the Congress manages to sustain this momentum and Priyanka decides to shift to Lucknow and be more visible and accessible, the party can improve its electoral tally substantially. But then, the Congress has a tendency to reach the crescendo too early and then wane away,바카라 says Pradhan. He also believes that if the Gandhi family is really serious about UP, interim party chief Sonia Gandhi and Rahul must ensure Priyanka shifts base to Lucknow and is declared the CM face. 바카라The impression that a Gandhi is too big to enter state politics must be broken but given the way the Congress works, I also know that this will not happen,바카라 he says.
Ajay Kumar Lallu, a two-term Congress MLA who has been arrested or detained over a dozen times for leading protests against the state government, claims that the Congress has rattled not just the BJP but also the SP and BSP. 바카라It is understandable for the BJP to attack us when we take on the Yogi government, but why are SP and BSP criticising us? This shows that we are winning the people바카라s trust. In the past year, over 50,000 Congress workers across UP have been slapped with various cases. I have 28 cases against me,바카라 he says. He asserts that the Congress바카라s activities will pick more pace from December and Priyanka could 바카라spend over 15 days each month travelling across the state to connect with the people and expose the BJP바카라.
The SP and BSP feel that Priyanka바카라s antics will not yield any major results. 바카라They have to show this aggression because they are starting from zero,바카라 says Samajwadi MP for Moradabad, S.T. Hasan, rejecting the charge that his party is giving the BJP a free run. 바카라The SP has a pan-UP presence and we have been resisting the BJP바카라s dictatorial and communal politics,바카라 Hasan says. BSP MP Danish Ali too says his party has been 바카라vocal when needed but does not believe in politicising any tragedy바카라.
Several BSP and SP lawmakers concede on condition of anonymity that their traditional vote base was fast eroding. A BSP Lok Sabha MP says, 바카라Our core strength was the Dalit vote. In 2014 and 2019, besides the Jatavs (Mayawati바카라s community), several Dalit sub-castes moved to the BJP. Mayawati should have focused on winning them back, but instead she kept reaching out to Brahmins.바카라 And so, he adds, 바카라non-Jatav Dalits don바카라t trust us now and may even see Chandrashekhar Azad Ravan as their leader; the Brahmins are uneasy with BJP because of Yogi바카라s preference for Thakurs but they are unlikely to desert the BJP in a big way because of the party바카라s Hindu pride plank. A realignment of some OBCs, Dalits and Muslims with the Congress is also possible.바카라
The same conundrum has been making several SP leaders uneasy. A former SP MP close to party founder and Akhilesh바카라s father, Mulayam Singh Yadav, says that 바카라non-Yadav OBCs have been drifting towards the BJP and Akhilesh has shown no interest in winning them back. Given the communal hate that the BJP has nurtured, our Muslim outreach has also dented the SP바카라s popularity among Hindu OBC sub-groups.바카라 The rift within the Yadav clan since the fallout between Akhilesh and his uncle, Shivpal Yadav, followed by Akhilesh바카라s failed coalition with Mayawati in the Lok Sabha polls despite Mulayam바카라s reservations has also rankled the traditional SP voter, sources say.
Lucknow-based senior journalist Atul Chandra agrees that the OBC vote-bank of the SP and the Dalit bloc of the BSP are frustrated with the two parties. He believes the SP and BSP do not criticise the BJP because of the many cases of corruption against Mayawati and Mulayam, which can be re-opened anytime. However, Chandra says the 바카라natural destination바카라 for these disenchanted voters will continue to be the BJP, because the Congress is 바카라still not seen as a party that can win and no one wants to waste their vote바카라. The Congress in UP has a vote-share of around 6 per cent in the assembly polls, says Chandra, explaining that to be in a position to form the government or be the main opposition party, 바카라the Congress will have to ramp up its vote share by over 20 per cent and at the moment people don바카라t see that happening; so why will they vote for the party?바카라
Congress leader Lalitesh Pati Tripathi concedes that his party still needs to work hard in reviving its grassroots presence and sustain the present pace of its political activity. 바카라In the past, we made blunders, but things are changing. We have a packed schedule of political activities and every office-bearer has been assigned specific tasks by Priyanka,바카라 says Tripathi, whose great-grandfather Kamlapati Tripathi was a former chief minister and Congress stalwart.
Eight assembly segments in UP will witness bypolls in November. None of the opposition parties seem to be in contention to win any of these seats바카라not even Bangarmau in Unnao district that fell vacant after BJP MLA Kuldeep Sengar was awarded a life term in the 2017 Unnao rape case. Journalist Chandra says a sweep in the bypolls will 바카라only embolden Adityanath further as he will see the victory as endorsement of his governance model바카라. The Opposition, meanwhile, can continue playing catch-up.
