With 150 Rallies, Will Priyanka Give the Congress an Edge in UP?

People in UP are upset with SP and unhappy with the BJP; will they turn to Congress-BSP instead?

The people of Nangla Gulal, a village in Uttar Pradesh’s Firozabad district, are bitter with the Akhilesh Yadav government for acquiring their land for the Agra-Lucknow expressway. It happened to be one of the few villages that actively protested the government’s land acquisition drive. Nangla Gulal, which was a Samajwadi Party’s bastion according to locals, has turned hostile as a result and has decided to “teach the Samajwadis a lesson.”

Barely 20 kilometres away, in another village called Dhanpura, a retired army NCO and now a full-time farmer, is very critical of the SP and the BJP.

I cannot remember ever voting for a party other than the SP. The positive momentum about the BJP in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections gave me hope. But I have realised that my optimism was misplaced.

Retired Army NCO (non-commissioned officer)

Disgruntled Voices

Firozabad and adjoining districts like Etawah and Kannauj have traditionally been SP strongholds. And it is not unusual to find voices very critical of the SP. Elsewhere in the state, there is disappointment with the “delay” in the arrival of the BJP’s promised achche din. “Kahan hai achche din? Ulta jo badlav aaya hai us se hamari zindagi mein musibaten badh gayi hain (Where are the good days? The recent changes have added to our woes instead),” a dhaba owner in Sahjahanpur said.

These are some of the many voices which signal that politics in the country’s most populous state has entered, as a veteran editor puts it, the “transactional phase.”

To put it in other words, political parties’ association with social groups based on primordial considerations is snapping. And it is being replaced by a ‘you-deliver-and-I-will-vote-for-you’ attitude.

That the SP cannot be assured of support among the Yadavs and other backward classes and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) not sure of getting Dalit votes, as shown in recent surveys, clearly shows that transactional politics has taken roots in the state.

Equalitarian Distribution of the Mandate

Given the way politics has evolved, will the reported move by the Congress to give Priyanka Gandhi a much larger profile in UP work to the party’s advantage? It may, if the Congress is able to sell aspirational dreams.

The most important trend in the last four polls – Lok Sabha and assembly – is that the verdict has been decisive and each of the four elections has seen a new winner. Contrary to expectations, the BSP won an absolute majority in the 2007 assembly polls. The Congress surprised all observers by doing reasonably well in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. But assembly elections held three years later in 2012 saw the SP winning an absolute majority. And the BJP swept the subsequent Lok Sabha polls in 2014.

“I call it equalitarian distribution of the mandate. The state’s voters have given equal chance to all of the four major parties in the last four elections,” A K Verma, Political Science professor at the Kanpur-based Christ Church College and UP coordinator of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), said recently.

Will Congress Enter into a Pre-Poll Alliance with BSP?

Given the fluidity of the situation, with old loyalties collapsing, Priyanka as a new face for the Congress with a new set of credible promises has the potential to galvanise the party rank and file and perhaps appeal to the voters. Prashant Kishor, the political strategist who helped Nitish Kumar win the tough electoral battle in Bihar, has set this target for the Congress.

While in Lucknow, I heard rumours of Kishor meeting BSP chief Mayawati twice and convincing her of a possible pre-poll alliance with the Congress. Mayawati, hitherto known to say no to any pre-poll tie-up, may be enthused by a seemingly resurgent Congress with Priyanka in the lead role. The alliance may fructify as per Prashant Kishor’s plans and has the potential to enter the electoral fray in pole position.

Will Congress’ Trump Card Work?

• Disgruntled and disillusioned people in SP bastions give the impression that the anti-incumbency factor may play against Akhilesh in UP.
  
• Priyanka being projected as the face of Congress may help in mobilising grass-root workers and appealing to voters.
  
• There are chances that Congress may enter into a pre-poll alliance with BSP.
  
• A possible tie-up may save Congress ignominy of an otherwise embarrassing electoral loss, where the party last won polls in 1989.
  
• Congress is also fraught with the dilemma of using its only trump card in a decisive poll, which can affect Priyanka’s stature nationally.
  

Sole Trump Card

The right question to ask is not whether the Priyanka strategy will work for the Congress in UP or not. A more pertinent question is whether the Congress is ready to field Priyanka in a very tough electoral battle in UP. If it works, she may become the numero uno leader in the Congress, eclipsing Rahul Gandhi. If it does not, the Congress may have wasted what many believe is its sole trump card.

The Congress may hedge the risk by giving Priyanka a limited role. She may be asked to campaign extensively in limited pockets to boost the party’s success rate in those areas. A possible tie-up with the BSP and significant improvement over its current tally of 28 seats in the UP assembly may still be seen as a moral victory for the Congress in the run-up to 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

(The writer is Consulting Editor, Business Standard, and contributes regularly to The Quint on politics and contemporary issues.)

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