Mayawati keeps the suspense alive
By Harihar Swarup
Political circles are again abuzz with the reports that early Lok Sabha poll are round the corner. True, after withdrawal of support to the UPA government by Mamata Banerjee, the future of the Manmohan Singh dispensation has become shaky. The Prime Minister cannot take outside support extended by Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav for granted.
Mayawati has her own calculations for opting for an early poll. While the spell of the Akhilesh Yadav Government on the people has not completely faded yet, it is waning day by day. The goonda Raj, reminiscent of the days of Mulayam Singh’s government, appears to have returned. The law and order in Akhilesh Yadav’s regime has touched a new low. People have begun to talk of the days of Mayawati’s government when law and order was much better than during Samajwadi Party’s second tenure.
If any early elections are forced, it appears Mulayam Singh may not be able to retain his present number in the Lok Sabha and his position would, therefore, become weak. Cashing on the weak spots of Akhilesh Yadav’s rule, Mayawati is likely to gain and may increase her tally by few seats.
The latest to play the guessing game is the BSP Czarina Mayawati, who has ominously put off a decision, not for very long she assures the faithful, on whether or not to support the UPA government. In the same breath she speaks of the possibility of an early election and how she and her forces will be fighting fit for this eventuality.
As expected, she is opposed, indeed filled with sorrow, at anti-people policies of the government. Indeed, some policies, which will hurt the pockets of people, have been taken. But then again, as in the case of Mamata, Mayawati offered support to the government in the full realization that it is a reform driven one. So why feign such horror and surprise when the government actually does what it has been champing at the bit to do all this while, but was reigned in by fractious allies like Mamata?
For Mayawati, getting a respectable number of seats from Uttar Pradesh if the elections are upon us soon is going to be an uphill task. The Akhilesh Yadav Government may not have covered itself in glory but the pro-Samajwadi sentiment has not yet faded away. Mayawati, while speaking of the plight of the poor, did not exactly champion their cause in recent years, as she busied herself building monuments and statues of herself and other Dalit heroes, not to mention a large herd of stone elephants, her party’s symbol.
The argument that this was meant to instill pride in the Dalits has long worn thin. During the assembly elections, several TV channels covered Dalit villages, some of them meant to be showpieces of empowerment. They were uniformly underdeveloped and few promises made to the people had been kept by the BSP. So, prudence would dedicate that Behenji first recover the lost ground before rushing to the electoral battle. To make matters worse, the Supreme Court has given the CBI the green signal to investigate the disproportionate assets cases against the BSP, something which mitigates against going in for an early poll.
Unlike Mamata, Mayawati is known to be cool and calculative. By playing politics, which will not yield too many benefits for herself or her party, she is going against her own grain. There is no clamour for early elections from her flock in Uttar Pradesh, neither is there any upsurge of sentiments in favour of this from any part of India. This seems to suggest that many of our political formations, which claim to speak for the people, are not are not quite in sync with what the people want. What people can do without is the suspense, which often leads to a shocker of an ending.
The most important event in a couple of months is Gujarat elections. They are not ordinary polls, for they will have impact on the national politics post general elections 2014. If Congress wins or, even improves its tally in the state assembly, the party’s chances will brighten. Modi made his first mistake by making the poll campaign personalized or, more precisely, Sonia-centric. Poll outcome notwithstanding, Sonia Gandhi’s stature has gone up for not attacking Modi on personal level or even mentioning his name. She has chosen to make electioneering just issue based.
One may recall that L K Advani launched a bitter attack on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the run up to 2009 elections. But hitting out at the PM viciously and repeatedly, what did Advani get in return? He made Dr. Singh a middle-class hero. Advani’s attack on PM, in fact, boomeranged very badly on the BJP as the middle class voted overwhelmingly for the Congress. It is too early to talk of 2014 elections. But Modi’s vitriolic attack on Sonia Gandhi appears to be a virtual repetition of the failed strategy of 2009. (IPA Service)