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Dominion of Mulayam and Maya

That the `regional' parties have all but exiled the `national' parties in Uttar Pradesh was brought out by recent elections to the Lok Sabha and the State Assembly. The trend would appear to have been confirmed by the results of the Kshetriya and Zilla Parishad elections held last month. The panchayat polls saw candidates supported by the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party slug it out for top honours. Mayawati's party pulled off stunning victories in several districts. Characteristically, the BSP leader warned arch-rival Mulayam Singh of worse to come in the next Assembly election. The irony cannot be lost on the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party. For decades, the Congress held sway over U.P., crucible of the freedom movement and arbiter of political India's destiny. The party that ruled U.P. ruled India: this was unchallenged conventional wisdom. Up until 1977, the Congress — with the largest share of popular vote and seats in the U.P. Assembly and a lion's share of Lok Sabha seats from the State — controlled the State as well as the Centre. Not that the Congress was without rivals in the State. The Jana Sangh and the various Socialist parties were always a factor in the U.P. elections. This is illustrated by the fact that in 1974 the Charan Singh-led Bharatiya Kranti Dal snatched a vote share of 21.22 per cent. Yet thanks to a highly divided popular vote, the Congress, with a consistent vote share of 30+ per cent, enjoyed uninterrupted power in the State.

The political monopoly was broken in 1977 by the Janata Party — a creature of the popular revolt against the Emergency — which stormed to power in India's most populous State and at the Centre. The Congress returned with a vengeance in 1980, winning a vote share of 37.65 per cent and better than two-thirds of the seats in U.P., and recaptured power at the Centre. V.P. Singh's advent as a crusader and the Ram wave of the late 1980s ended the traditional dominance of India's Grand Old Party. For the first time, its vote share in the State fell below 30 per cent. In 1991, Narasimha Rao buried the myth of U.P.'s indispensability. The Congress returned to South Block with a mere five Lok Sabha seats from U.P. whereas the lion's share of 51 seats went to the BJP. The Hindutva party seized power in the State with 221 Assembly seats on the strength of a 31.45 per cent vote share. The Congress' vote share declined to 17.32 per cent and its seats to 46. Yet neither party could have guessed what was in store. Within the decade, the old order would be upset by a powerful social churning and by parties and leaders who worked hard at the grassroots, spoke a new political idiom, and unapologetically pursued power. Today the Samajwadi Party and the BSP view themselves as key actors on the national stage. Each is on a mission to reach a 30 per cent vote share in Uttar Pradesh and bargain for a crucial role at the Centre.

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