Cash crunch hits poll campaigns in UP

The BSP is opting for press conferences and press statements. The Congress is using the ongoing Parliament session as an excuse to stall its campaign. The Samajwadi Party has held two rallies but Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav’s ambitious Rath Yatra is waiting for the green signal at his official residence. The BJP’s Parivartan Yatras are on but have slowed down to an extent.

A month after demonetisation the impact is now becoming clearly visible on the election campaigning in Uttar Pradesh but no one is complaining—apparently, no one wants to admit that their campaigns are being run on black money.

The Bahujan Samaj Party, which had taken an early lead in announcing candidates and launching its poll campaign, now seems to be going slow. BJP supremo Mayawati began her campaign with rallies in quick succession in Agra, Azamgarh, Allahabad and Saharanpur, but after demonetisation, the BSP has not held a single rally.

Smaller meetings are being addressed in various districts by second-rung leaders like Satish Chandra Mishra and Naseemuddin Siddiqui, but Mayawati is not addressing huge rallies for the time being.

The Congress campaign, which got off to an enthusiastic start in July this year, with Rahul Gandhi’s Kisan Yatra, and Sonia Gandhi’s road show in Varanasi has almost ground to a halt. Though party leaders claim that the brief lull is because of the ongoing Parliament session since most of the top UP leaders are members of the Rajya Sabha, sources confirm that the cash crunch is adversely affecting the Congress campaign.

The Samajwadi Party has also been affected by demonetisation and Akhilesh Yadav’s Rath Yatra has been stalled without any obvious reason. The impact of demonetisation was clearly seen at the recent Bareilly rally addressed by Mulayam Singh Yadav, where there was a drastic reduction in the number of posters and hoardings welcoming the party leaders.

The BJP, meanwhile, is braving the impact of demonetisation and is going ahead with its Parivartan Yatras although participation in these yatras is much below expectation.

Suresh Agarwal, who deals in election-related memorabilia, explains the situation. “In normal circumstances, my vinyl poster printing machines would have been working overtime for rallies, meetings and yatras, but almost 80% of the orders have been cancelled. Our stalls outside the various party offices in Lucknow have no customers. Most politicians say they have no cash to spend on elections and they do not want to pay with cheque or make online payments since that would bring them under the scanner,” he said.

A former BSP minister, meanwhile, admitted that he was now wary of contesting the elections and was even planning to return his ticket.

“There are many like me who are having second thoughts about contesting the elections. The expenditure limit put up by the Election Commission is not practical. We have to provide petrol, diesel for vehicles, food for workers and also for the campaign publicity material. No one accepts digital payments for all this—if we do, then we land in the tax net or get disqualified for exceeding the limit,” he said.

Sources said that several candidates in almost all political parties were having second thoughts about contesting the elections in the present circumstances since the cash crunch was unlikely to ease before the poll dates are announced.