Elections in Uttar Pradesh are being held on time, but the major political players in the state remain in a state of unpreparedness.
The ruling Samajwadi Party is in a shambles, with the family war splitting the party.
Efforts to broker truce between father Mulayam Singh Yadav and son and Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav have reached a dead end and it is the party legislators and candidates who face an uncertain future ahead. The possibility of the party symbol being frozen by the Election Commission looms large over the party.
“In any case, the Election Commission decision is expected to take at least another week and till the haze clears, we cannot campaign because we still do not know whether or not we will get the cycle symbol. The Chief Minister is also in a dilemma over the issue, but this is proving to be a major hurdle,” said a legislator known to be a staunch Akhilesh follower.
Some senior ministers, on the other hand, admit that they would like to contest on the cycle symbol and are even willing to return to the Mulayam faction if the latter gets to retain the symbol.
“We have worked for five years under this symbol and a new symbol at this stage will prove to be our undoing,” one of them said. In this infighting, the Samajwadi Party campaign has ground to a complete halt and at a time when candidates should be campaigning in their constituencies, they are staying in Lucknow, keeping an eye on the evolving situation.
The BJP, which is looking to form the government in Uttar Pradesh, is banking on the stars — literally — to release its list of candidates. “The party will release its list after ‘Makar Sankranti’ (14 January) when auspicious time begins according to the Hindu calendar. When the list comes out, there will be just three days left for nominations to begin for the first phase of elections. The party leadership is blissfully unaware of the demonetarisation impact at the grassroots level and we need time to neutralise the people’s anger. The absence of a Chief Ministerial candidate is already a disadvantage for us because this election is all about personalities,” said a senior party legislator.
The BSP, on the other hand, may seem poised for a big kill after the split in the Samajwadi Party, but Mayawati’s new Dalit-Muslim “formula” is yet to catch on.
Muslims, interestingly, are wary of BSP because of the fact that the party had formed government with the BJP thrice in UP, and there is no stopping the BSP president from doing the same again if she falls short of a majority on her own. Dalits, who had crossed over to the BJP in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, are also in no mood to return to their parent party.
“Demonetisation has affected the upper castes who had kept money at home. We are happy that Narendra Modi has taught them a lesson so we will continue to support the BJP,” said Kamal Gautam, a young graduate from Barabanki. The BSP, clearly, is not in a happy space right now, though Mayawati continues to put up a brave front.
The Congress is in a sleeping mode and its leadership cannot take a decision on whether or not it wants to join hands with a cracked SP. The party list is nowhere in sight and Chief Ministerial candidate Sheila Dikshit has queered the pitch by announcing that she would happily step aside for Akhilesh Yadav if there was an alliance. “With leaders like these, we wonder whether we are in the Congress or simply standing on no man’s land,” said a party MLA.