BJP’s win casts doubts over politics of grand alliance

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) dominant show in the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls has put a big question mark over the politics of ‘maha gathbandhan’ in the run up to the 2019 general elections.

The ‘third front’ alternative is a coalition of big and small parties.

As late as 2015, a ‘mahagathbandhan’ of the JD(U), RJD and Congress had successfully checkmated the saffron party in Bihar.

But the near decimation of the Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance in Uttar Pradesh might have ended prospects of a coming together of oppostion parties in the next Lok Sabha polls.

Old socialists, who had successfully orchestrated “identity politics” in the Hindi heartland states in the last three decades, are either dead or have been diminished by advancing age.

Much hope was reposed in the youthful Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav to emerge the poster boy of a reinvented brand of socialist politics.

The Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance of UP was no more than a patchwork as compared to the show of complete unity put up by the RJD-JDU-Congress in adjoining Bihar ahead of the 2015 assembly elections.

Akhilesh spurned offers from Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) to align with the grouping.

There was no effort to rope in BSP leader Mayawati for a prepoll alliance. The absence of Sonia and Priyanka Gandhi also took considerable sheen off the “maha gathbandhan” pitch.

“The outcome may have been somewhat different if more effort had been made in stitching together a genuine alliance,” a Samajwadi Party leader said.

Coalition governments have come into existence on several occasions in Uttar Pradesh, but none of these have lasted a full term, mainly due to clash of egos between regional satraps.

The Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance was not able to achieve traction with voters on account of this – and other related factors, a veteran UP watcher said.

“It is a thumping loss and devastating setback to ‘alternative politics’. The message is loud and clear: Regional leaders must sink differences and take lessons from the Bihar model. It is a now-or-never situation,” JD (U) spokesperson, KC Tyagi, said.