LUCKNOW: Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, on Thursday, denied yet again having received Congress’s invite to join Bharat Jodo Yatra in UP commencing on January 3 saying that neither he nor his party received any invitation.
“We have not received any invitation (for Bharat Jodo Yatra). The ideology of our party is different. BJP and Congress both are same,” said Yadav in a direct reply to a poser by media persons here on Thursday.
Earlier in the week, Akhilesh had laughed off the Congress’s invitation as a mere gossip (chandukhane ki gupp) saying though he agreed with the idea of uniting the country “but who would remove BJP.”
Not only the SP chief but all other opposition leaders of UP seem to be reluctant in joining high profile yatra on one pretext or the other. While BSP state chief Vishwanath Pal also denied having received the invite, RLD spokesman Anil Dubey claimed that his party president Jayant Chaudhury would not be in India during those dates.
On the contrary, the Congress leadership has been claiming to have sent the invite to a bevy of leaders ranging from former UP Deputy CM Dr Dinesh Sharma to SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, RLD chief Jayant Chaudhury, BSP chief Mayawati, BSP general secretary SC Mishra, SP MLA Shivpal Yadav, Suheldev Bahartiya Samaj Party (SBSP) chief OP Rajbhar and CPI general secretary Atul Anjan to join the UP leg of its Yatra led by Rahul Gandhi covering 110 km across three western UP districts—Ghaziabad, Baghpat and Shamli -- before entering Sonepat in Haryana via Kairana on January 5.
By inviting UP leaders to join Yatra, while Congress is looking for an opportunity to give a push to its revival bid in UP by projecting it as the leader of united opposition, the UP opposition leaders are sensitive enough to let Congress capitalise on it.
“The Congress’s thought behind extending invite to UP leaders seems to be its another desperate bid to revive its prospects in Uttar Pradesh by putting up a united face of the opposition under its leadership as it has reduced literally to a non-entity in UP,” says Prof SK Dwivedi, former HoD, Political Science,
Lucknow University.
He adds that contrary to Congress’s efforts, the opposition is trying to keep the it at a safe distance. “The regional satraps neither want to give space to Congress in UP, nor do they want to be seen as having accepted Congress leadership ahead of 2024 for it will send a different message among the voters,” says
Prof Dwivedi.
As for SP, Akhilesh Yadav is reluctant to join Yatra because he doesn’t want to be seen associated with the Congress ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, feel a senior SP leader.
A senior SP leader says on the condition of anonymity that the party has have a bad experience of alliance with Congress in 2017 assembly polls. It does not want to repeat the same mistake by joining the yatra which will trigger fresh speculations about an SP-Congress alliance in 2024.
“In 2017, we had spared 105 of 403 seats for the Congress which could win just seven. We also lost many owing to that alliance and could get just 47,” says the SP leader claiming that now the party has decided to align with smaller outfits instead of joining hands with bigger parties which expect much but fail to deliver on their part.
“Same happened in 2019, when SP-BSP came together but to no avail as SP transferred votes to the BSP which improved its tally respectably by 10 from zero in Lok Sabha, but the BSP failed to deliver and its voters did not back SP candidates,” says the SP leader.
The difference of SP’s approach towards alliances became clear in 2022 Assembly elections. “In 2022, we took along smaller parties and the tally of SP-led alliance jumped to 125 from 54 in 2017,” he maintains adding: “We have not benefitted from alliance with bigger parties but they have benefited from the SP’s support base.”
Similarly, BSP chief Mayawati, after winning just one seat in 2022 UP assembly polls, is treading cautiously and has decided to go it alone in upcoming elections.
Moreover, AICC chief Priyanka Gandhi Vadra had launched direct attack on Mayawati accusing her of playing BJP’s B team during 2022 poll campaign and otherwise also.
“We do not want to get associated with any party. We are charting out own course,” says BSP state chief Vishwanath Pal saying that his party was busy preparing for upcoming civic polls and 2024 Lok Sabah polls alone.
After the UP Assembly elections, Mayawati has been reorganising her party going back to her basics and banking upon the Dalit-Muslim combination relinquishing her social engineering formula of Dalit-Brahmin-Muslim which had led her party to get a historic mandate in 2007 assembly elections but failed to impress voters in 2022.
Meanwhile, Congress state sokeman Ashok Singh calls it the politics of fear. “We are fighting it by uniting the country through Bharat Jodo Yatra. We had invited leaders of other parties to join us in this battle. If they come, they are welcome, if not, its their wish,” says Singh.