The Congress has finally managed to clinch a coalition with the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh for the 2017 Assembly polls. While the Congress will contest in 105 out of 403 constituencies, the SP will battle it out in the remaining 298 seats. While this foreclosed the possibility of a mahagathbandhan on the pattern of Bihar, it has created hype about a victory for the coalition on the basis of simple arithmetic. The Congress got 11.63 per cent votes in the previous polls in 2012 while the SP received a 29.15 per cent vote share; if one adds them up, it makes for a formidable 40.78 per cent vote share, that may lead to a stunning victory for the Congress-SP coalition.
But politics is not mere arithmetic. There is an underlying assumption in the calculation that both partners would largely be able to get their votes transferred to each other. But would that really be possible? Congress has some traditional voters in all sections of society cutting across caste and class lines, but it is very doubtful if they will vote for its coalition partner. Probably, they would either shift to other parties or vote for the local Congress rebel if he contests as an independent candidate.
In 2012, Congress had contested 355 seats in alliance with Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal. So this time, the party faces two major problems owing to the new coalition. One, in constituencies where its 255 former contestants are denied tickets, there is a strong possibility that they would turn rebels or defect to other parties, especially the BJP; in some constituencies, such candidates have already joined the BJP. Two, if the Congress is fighting in only 105 constituencies, the chances are that in the remaining 300 constituencies, its party organisation, which is already fragile, would collapse. This would greatly harm the party’s electoral chances in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
The SP’s core constituency is Ahir/Yadav–Thakur–Muslim (ATM). While its Muslim voters may vote for coalition candidates in a bid to defeat the BJP, the same may not be true of its non-Muslim voters. That is because 77 per cent Thakurs and 27 per cent Yadavs had voted BJP in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, and if they do not have SP candidates to vote for in 105 constituencies, there is a possibility that they would not vote for the Congress and shift to the BJP or vote for SP rebels. Thus, the entire Congress-SP coalition is based on flawed logic and may be counterproductive. More, the SP had announced its candidates for all seats in the first and second phases of the polls; withdrawing such candidates now will be politically damaging to the SP and personally embarrassing to the SP candidates.
The second challenge before the SP-Congress coalition is Mayawati’s BSP. Since her defeat in 2012, Mayawati appears to be more interested in exterminating Mulayam Singh Yadav and his party than getting the BSP back to power. She had kept a low profile in the 2014 LS polls. Even this time, she is not sure about her support; hence, she is attempting a new social engineering experiment by forming a Dalit-Muslim coalition. Our recent field studies in about 60 sampled Assembly constituencies and 300 sampled polling booths indicate two prominent things. One, Dalit voters, especially non-Jatavs, feel that if behenji (Mayawati) does not put up a good fight, they would not allow the “goons” of SP to come to power again.
Two, despite Mayawati’s offer of 97 tickets to Muslims, they are not enthusiastic about voting for the BSP and their support to the party has gone down from 18 per cent in July 2016 to 14 per cent in December 2016. So, with Mayawati electorally weakened, the Dalits might be forced to shift to the BJP.
Thirdly, the SP–Congress coalition may polarise the electorate. The greater Muslim support to coalition may lead to counter-polarisation of Hindus. We had already seen its impact in western UP in the 2014 LS polls after the Muzzaffarnagar riots where the BJP made a clean sweep and the SP was totally wiped out. And the BJP would not miss this opportunity to ensure counter-polarisation. That also has the potential to defeat the aspiration of Akhilesh Yadav, SP’s new and young supremo, to win about 300 seats and return to power.
Fourthly, Mayawati’s new Dalit-Muslim coalition may bring some surprise Muslim shift to the BSP because she is giving tickets to 97 Muslims as compared to 60 in 2012. In Muslim- dominated constituencies, this would surely lead to division of Muslim votes harming the SP’s prospects. In addition, Asaduddin Owaisi’s MIM is also entering the UP election fray for the first time which may also add to the SP’s discomfiture.
And, finally, one does not really know how Akhilesh’s uncle Shivpal Yadav would sabotage his campaign. The signal was there at the function to release the manifesto of the party which both Mulayam and Shivpal did not attend. The manifesto did not even carry Shivpal’s picture. He is seen as a tough guy in the party who had control over the rank and file in the party. How his ego and embarrassment gets amalgamated to damage the SP’s campaign, only time will tell.
However, having said all that, this is not to suggest that Akhilesh has no chance to return to power. That is because his personal image is clean; he has established himself as a development-centric politician sans criminal company. The entire episode of the feud within the party and government had brought Akhilesh to the centre stage of the SP.
Akhilesh is now seen as a chief minister who can assert himself. Of course, that is not to say that he will not have a difficult time ahead, but he will surely give the BJP a tough fight—a fight that appears to be evenly matched at the moment.
A K Verma
Director, Centre for the Study of Society and Politics, Kanpur
Email: akv1722@gmail.com