Mayawati makes comeback, Mulayam has his back to wall
11 Nov 2009, 0508 hrs IST, Devesh Kumar, ET Bureau
NEW DELHI: By-elections to 11 assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh have
re-established Ms Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party as the dominant
player in the
state. BSP bagged 9 out of 11 seats, while Congress slugging it out
against the Samajwadi Party, in its bid to emerge the main challenger
to BSP, wrested the Ferozabad Lok Sabha seat from SP and Lucknow West
assembly seat from BJP. A independents bagged one seat. The Samajwadi
Party and BJP drew a blank, while Congress lost its Padrauna and
Jhansi seats.
If this trend persists in the assembly polls in early 2012, BJP, which
is at a distant fourth at present, will struggle to retain its tally
of 49 seats. The Ferozabad Lok Sabha constituency, which fell vacant
after Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav's son Akhilesh
vacated the seat and retained Kannauj, saw Mr Akilesh Yadav's wife
Dimple, losing the seat to Congress' Raj Babbar.
In what could be described as voters rejecting expansion of the
dynastic politics of the Samajwadi Party chief, veteran film star Raj
Babbar trounced Ms Dimple Yadav by over 85,000 votes, delivering a
severe blow to Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav's plans to get his
daughter-in-law into the Lok Sabha.
The Yadav clan is already well represented in Parliament. Apart from
the father-son duo of Mulayam-Akhilesh the Lok Sabha has Mr Yadav's
nephew Dharmendra too. Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav's younger brother Ram
Gopal is a member of the Rajya Sabha, while another brother, Mr
Shivpal Yadav, is a member of the state assembly. The Samajwadi
Party's attempts to retain its eminence in the state was dealt a blow
by voters at Bharthana and Etawah, Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav's family
backyard. Bharthana is dominated by Yadavs, and the party supremo
hails from neighbouring Etawah. BSP wrested both assembly seats from
the Samajwadi Party.
BSP, by all accounts, has staged a remarkable comeback, having
pocketed 9 of the 11 assembly seats. The Samajwadi Party fared
miserably as it held five of the assembly seats that went to the
polls. BJP, which held Kolasla and Lucknow West faced a meltdown,
notwithstanding the fact that party president Rajnath Singh hails from
the state.
Congress ceded Padrauna, won in 2007 by Union minister R P N Singh,
and Jhansi, vacated by Union minister Pradip Jain, to BSP but had the
satisfaction of snatching the Lucknow West assembly seat from BJP.
BSP seems to have re-built the social coalition that had helped it
leapfrog the half-way mark in the state assembly in the 2007 polls. It
won Padrauna, Jhansi, Bharthana, Etawah, Hainsar Bazar, Isauli,
Lalitpur, Rari and Powayan and finished runners-up in Kolasla.
The results indicate Dalits continue to cling to BSP, notwithstanding
Mr Rahul Gandhi's concerted attempt to poach upon Ms Mayawati's core
constituency. The UP chief minister was simultaneously wooing sections
of other upper castes, particularly Brahmins and non-Yadav OBCs. After
the jolt delivered by the electorate in the Lok Sabha polls, Ms
Mayawati realised that her core voters, the Dalits, could not be
overlooked in favour of other castes. She has since gone back to the
basics by trying to re-cultivate loyal voters.
For the Samajwadi Party, the by-election verdict should set alarm
bells ringing. It not only failed to open its account, but had the
mortification of ceding control of Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav's home turfs
Bharthana and Etawah to BSP. Its woes were compounded by the loss of
the Ferozabad Lok Sabha seat. Bharthana, a Yadav-dominated
constituency located close to Etawah, was won by the party supremo
himself in 2007, and had fallen vacant after his elevation to the Lok
Sabha. BSP's Shiv Prasad Yadav inflicted a humiliating defeat to the
Samajwadi Party candidate, Mr Pradeep Yadav, winning the constituency
by a margin of over 15,000 votes.
The Samajwadi Party could only draw consolation from the fact that its
candidates finished runners-up in Padrauna, Bharthana, Etawah,
Lalitpur and Rari. Muslims, it would appear, have deserted the party
and gravitated to Congress and BSP.
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