UP: Big parties avoid each other; stitch alliances with caste-based formations

It has been a season of caste-based alliances with both the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) and its main opponent Samajwadi Party (SP) out to lure tiny parties with their niche base.

The personal rapprochement

Both SP national president Akhilesh Yadav and his estranged uncle, Shivpal Singh Yadav, have relented and agreed to forge an electoral understanding for the upcoming polls. Speculation is that both may make a public announcement on the birthday of the party and family patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav on November 22.

If Mulayam Singh had scripted the high voltage SP drama back In 2017, perhaps this would be his final shot — his legacy remains with his son Akhilesh without splitting the party that he had formed in October 1992 or his huge political family that has burgeoned under his umbrella.

As of now, party leaders are non-committal as seat-sharing may prove to be a contentious issue between the son and the uncle, as the latter’s fledgling party Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party had fared badly in its maiden 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

The SP’s caste alliances

The SP has also stitched an understanding with Jat dominated Rashtriya Lok Dal in West and the Rajbhar (OBC) dominated Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP) in the east.

A former senior Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Om Prakash Rajbhar had formed Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP) during early 2000 after he had fallen out with Mayawati. But his day in the sun came in 2017 when in alliance with the BJP, his party won four assembly seats. He became a minister in the Yogi Adityanath government and SBSP a state party. Two years later, he got sacked from the government for his anti-alliance activities.

Rajbhar formed a ten-party Samyukta Bhagidari Sankalp Morcha of tiny to small caste-based unrecognised parties in 2020, which collapsed on October 27 2021.

According to SBSP vice president Shashi Pratap Singh Rajbhars alone account for 20,000 to 50,000 in 127 UP assembly constituencies. Arkbanshi, as Rajbhars are known in West UP constitute 10,000 to 12,000 votes in several constituencies.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath dismissed the development as, “every party has a right to broaden its base.”

The BJP’s caste calculus

The BJP had won 325 seats in the 2017 assembly election. It has already tied up with Kurmi-based Apna Dal and Nishad party which have pockets of influence in Varanasi and Gorakhpur regions of East UP.

BJP’s state vice president Vijay Pathak said, “We, as Bhartiya Jan Sangh, had also contested the country’s first post-Independence in alliance with other political parties. It’s our tradition to take all along with us, irrespective of our strength or the size of the ally. Today Apna Dal is a bigger party than Congress in the state as it has more MLAs.”

Anupriya Patel, who inherited Apna Dal from her father Sone Lal Patel, has been a hard bargainer after she won nine of the 11 seats it contested in 2017 state polls in alliance with the BJP. She won the Mirzapur Lok Sabha seat, too, in 2014 and 2019. She once said, “My politics starts with the base vote of 5-7%. I have to judiciously use my support base to grow.” Kurmis are about 7% of the population, concentrated in eastern UP. She is Union Minister in the Modi government.

As for the Nishad party, soon after his meeting with Union home minister Amit Shah in New Delhi on August 15, the party’s chief Sanjay Nishad had indicated the continuation of the alliance with the BJP. But he is demanding the inclusion of Nishads in the SC category besides withdrawal of cases against his party workers.

Launched in 2016, the Nishad Party had come to the limelight when with the support of the SP-BSP, it wrested the Gorakhpur Lok Sabha seat in the 2018 by-poll. That improved the party’s bargaining power and, in 2019, it became the BJP’s ally, winning the Sant Kabir Nagar Lok Sabha seat. Nishad says, “A survey is on to assess the party’s strength in the state which would be submitted to BJP national president JP Nadda to facilitate the seat-sharing formula.”

The importance given by the BJP to alliances even with small parties can be gauged from the fact that their top-most leaders sign deals.

Trust deficit within the Opposition

The parties in the opposition — SP, Congress and BSP — don’t trust each other and will contest independently.

While keeping SP’s doors open for smaller parties, Akhilesh Yadav has repeatedly ruled out tie-ups with mainline parties after his bitter experience of alliance with Congress in 2017 and BSP in 2019.

BSP leader Mayawati has also closed doors for alliances as she believes that while she can transfer her votes, others lack that ability.

The coalition era

Notwithstanding the flop mega shows of alliances in UP’s political amphitheatre in the past, every election has thrown strange partners.

These alliances between ideologically incompatible parties have rarely fructified in the long run, but have delivered short-term political gains since 1967, often described as a watershed in Indian politics when Samtyuka Vidhayak Dal, a coalition of parties was formed to give anti-Congress government and, thereafter, with the 1977 Janata Party experiment.

One-party rule made a comeback in the 1980s and continued for a decade. However, chief ministers were frequently changed. Kalyan Singh (BJP) led the last majority government of that period from June 1991 that was dismissed on December 6, 1992, after the demolition of the Babri shrine in Ayodhya.

The coalition era again started in the 1990s.

Interestingly, the politicians always had a holy cognitive cover for their unholy alliances such as empowering the Bahujan Samaj, constructing a rainbow coalition of Brahmin, Dalit and Muslim or decimating the communal forces.

Significantly, the BSP not only owes its growth to the alliances it ruthlessly sealed and snapped but is also credited for breaking the 14-year-long coalition jinx of the 1990s in 2007.

The 1990s saw the coming together of two regional forces – the SP and the BSP — to take on a resurgent BJP riding the Ram wave. Both the parties were new but the political acumen of their founder presidents, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Kanshi Ram, was well established. The SP and the BSP together represented the OBCs, Muslims and Dalits – a dream that Kanshi Ram had seen of uniting 85% of the population. Interestingly, the BJP had won more seats in the 1993 polls, but despite protests outside Raj Bhavan, did not get an invite to form the government. The SP-BSP government led by Mulayam Singh was installed with support from the Congress and the Janata Dal.

As the Dalit and Yadavs, the two antagonistic groups led by two strong leaders Mayawati and Mulayam Singh clashed in the heartland, the alliance started developing cracks and collapsed in 1995.

The BJP, which was watching the entire political drama from the sidelines, uncomfortable with the unity of backwards and Dalits that they were trying to consolidate under their banner of Hindutva, jumped in and supported Mayawati, albeit from the outside, to become CM in June 1995. The BJP’s support laid the foundation stone for future alliances with the BSP and won over their target group of Dalits. It also helped in removing much of the party’s political untouchability that it had earned after the demolition of the Babri Mosque in 1992.

Much drama followed as Mayawati, though supported by the BJP, aggressively pursued her Dalit agenda, upsetting the BJP’s Hindutva plan. She ruled the state for four-and-a-half months in her first term. Soon, her political agenda became unbearable for the BJP and the party withdrew support. The flashpoint was the installation of Periyar’s statue at Parivartan Chowk in Lucknow.

In 1996, the Congress led by PV Narasimha Rao and Sitaram Kesari, decided to ally with Kanshi Ram who easily wrested 296 of the 425 assembly seats. Together, they barely touched the hundred mark as the Congress won 33 and the BSP ended with 67. Rahul Gandhi had later described the alliance as a complete sellout by the Congress and a blanket one.

The BSP was, however, not disturbed as its vote share went up from 11.11% in 1993 to 19.64% in 1996. Two months later, Mayawati dumped her pre-poll partner Congress to join hands with the BJP, the communal forces that they had vowed to decimate, to form the government.

The BJP had emerged as the single largest party in the 1996 polls but fell short of the majority mark. But Mayawati got to rule the state for the first six months. After completing her part of the tenure, Mayawati handed over power to Kalyan Singh but soon pulled the rug. Rajnath Singh then especially the BSP and Congress to save the Kalyan Singh government. In the process, the state had a jumbo coalition government of 90+ ministers.

By then, dissensions plagued the BJP. The high command removed Kalyan Singh, installed a little-known Ram Prakash Gupta, who was later replaced by Rajnath Singh.

Kalyan Singh became a rebel, criticised the BJP, quit the party and formed his own Rashtriya Kranti Party. Many believe that he helped the SP emerge as the single largest party in the subsequent elections held in 2002 to avenge his humiliation. The SP had won 143 seats. As no party could form the government in a hung house, the state came under President’s rule.

The BSP-BJP tried yet another marriage of convenience. However, this time, Mayawati was in a better bargaining position as she had about 98 members in the House against 88 of the BJP. Her vote percentage had also shot up to 23.19%, barely two percentage points less than the SP. Mayawati again became the chief minister. But the mistrust between the two parties did more damage to the BJP as she fanned differences within its state unit. She resigned after staying in power for one year and 128 days, after her name figured in the Taj Corridor case.

In October 2003, Kalyan Singh, Amar Singh and Choudhury Ajit Singh installed a Mulayam Singh Yadav led government in the state. They were leaders of different political temperament but came together for a common cause — power. They ruthlessly broke parties to form the government in 2003 after a bloody battle on the floor of the House. The Mulayam government remained safe and completed the full term.

The return of majority rule

In 2007, Mayawati broke the coalition jinx. Five years later, the SP formed a majority government in 2012 and then the BJP government got a majority in 2017.

However, experiments in alliances continued. The Congress-SP came together in the 2017 assembly polls, the BSP-SP for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Besides the initial hype, both alliances failed to yield the desired results.

The opposition is unlikely to unite though they have a common political rival in the BJP. The SP is banking on goodwill for their leader and consolidation of the anti-BJP votes in their favour. The BSP is waiting for a fractured verdict as the BJP would want to propel a Dalit CM to retain its hold on the vote bank. The Congress has only lost every election in the last three decades but continues to hope that the next one will swing fortunes. And the BJP is confident of returning to power with a lesser margin.