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Beyond winners and losers in U.P.

Harish Khare

The verdict will need to be understood in the larger context. The Uttar Pradesh voter has introduced a new element of clarity and unambiguity.

THE FIRST and foremost casualty of the Uttar Pradesh verdict is the `third front' dream that was conjured up on April 23, 2007, when Mulayam Singh gathered together in Allahabad assorted political personalities. The U.P. voter was sought to be impressed with the Samajwadi Party's national goodwill and friends. That show was meant to rekindle the hopes for an immediate change of dispensation in New Delhi after the U.P. vote. The resounding anti-incumbency verdict has put paid to the pretentious appeal of a `third front' in New Delhi; at least for now, Mr. Mulayam Singh and his aides should feel discouraged about the prospects for creating instability at the Centre. By the same reckoning the Manmohan Singh regime should be able to breathe a bit easier, now that the Bharatiya Janata Party stands denied of an opportunity to make the United Progressive Alliance feel besieged.

The second and most comforting feature of the verdict is the emergence of a clear-cut winner in what was perceived to be the most fragmented political territory in India, as Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati has pointed out. No party in Uttar Pradesh has been able to win a majority since the BJP got 221 seats in the 1991 Assembly elections at a time when the State was awash with the Ayodhya sentiment. Apart from the alchemy that Ms. Mayawati has managed to achieve through her social engineering, the BSP has restored the efficacy of the very idea of single party government in this age of coalitions and fragmentation. The unambiguous vote points to a tiredness with the "jor-tor ki rajniti" (politics of manipulation and manoeuvring) as also to the electorate's desire for some kind of stability in the governing arrangement. If U.P. has opted for a single-party government, why should it be assumed that the electorate at the national level would not want to vote for similar stability at the Centre?

Thirdly, the Congress should have good reason to introspect how to re-align the family matrix with democratic ethos. The Nehru-Gandhi family can retain its pre-eminence in the Congress but it will require a different kind of engagement for Rahul Gandhi to make a difference in and beyond Uttar Pradesh. The only consolation the Congress managers can draw is that the voters' response was in an election to a State Assembly rather than to the Lok Sabha. The Congress managers would also need to understand and address the nature of the voter's disquiet over the price rise. The voter in U.P., as elsewhere in the country, holds the government at the Centre responsible for the economic situation.

BJP's failure

But from the UPA point of view, the real satisfaction should be the failure of the BJP sales pitch. It has to be remembered that the BJP's campaign was quarterbacked by the sangh parivar; the RSS and the VHP had taken full charge. The VHP crisis managers had pitched in when Mahant Adityanath "revolted"; again, the sangh people played a pro-active role in making Uma Bharti retire from the fray so as to avoid any split in the "Hindu vote."

Throughout the campaign and much before it, the BJP had deliberately sought to test the waters with its "aggressive Hindutva" platform. The controversial CD was only a minor sideshow in its strategy of instigating a larger Hindu-Muslim divide. The BJP was even prepared to mount an assault on the Election Commission, convinced as it was that the country's middle classes were pining for a return of "Hindu nationalism." A section within the BJP was even pitching for a larger, national role for Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. For instance, the BJP's friends in the media had noted with satisfaction how Mr. Modi was drawing bigger crowds than party president Rajnath Singh.

The U.P. electorate, potentially the most receptive group of voters for the BJP brand of Hindutva politics, has firmly rejected the Rajnath Singh team's new emphasis on a return to sectarianism. The U.P. voter has rebuffed the BJP's charge of "minority appeasement," be it the Sachar Report or the India-Pakistan peace process or the demand for deployment of security forces in Jammu and Kashmir.

Above all, the U.P. vote is the first evidence of a kind of "Manmohan Effect": the country's collective nerves remain calm and un-excitable, despite occasional provocations from jihadi groups.

While there is no cause for the UPA bosses to feel greatly excited, there is also no need for them to persist with their self-doubts.

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