Power politics may get murkier before 2017 assembly polls

LUCKNOW: Electricity has always generated a lot of heat between the centre and the state irrespective of the parties that were in power over the last 20 years.

Uttar Pradesh is the country’s most power-deficient state with a yawning demand supply gap that reached the whopping 4000 MW this summer. The ruling parties, be it the Samajwadi Party now or the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) earlier, end up becoming an easy target for the opposition and the media for their inability to improve the power situation.

Not being able to do much in the matter, the state governments have, in turn, shown the tendency of blaming the centre for the power shortage.

The centre has rebutted the charges and accused the state of inefficiency, a charge which many believe is not without substance.

Indeed, it was power politics that was behind the war of words between the UPA 1 and the Mulayam Singh Yadav government, and then between the UPA 2 and the Mayawati government. The Akhilesh Yadav government also had strained relations with the UPA 2 on power issues.

Now, when the Narendra Modi government has replaced the UPA 2, the war of words has only intensified in the proportion to the demand-supply gap getting wider every year.

After union minister for power and coal Piyush Goyal openly accused the Akhilesh government in September of not being serious about tackling the state’s deepening power crisis, chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and his officials posted tweets and dashed off letters to the centre one after another, refuting the charges and putting the blame on the centre which they said was not providing coal for the state’s existing and proposed thermal plants. They also said the state was not getting the full amount of power as its share from the central pool.

The Narendra Modi government at the centre and Akhilesh Yadav government at the state share the common goal of ensuring 24X7 power supply to the people. They know they cannot achieve the goal without each other’s cooperation, all the mud-slinging notwithstanding. Ironically, the war of words may intensify despite the two sides cherishing a common dream. Apart from the fact that the BJP and the SP are ideologically polesapart, the fact that electricity is politically a very important subject in UP is all set to make the fight keener between the two governments as the UP draws closer to 2017 assembly polls

Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav himself explained the political significance that electricity held for his party. “We are aware of the political importance of electricity,” he said while addressing a function organised by the UP Electricity Regulatory Commission last month. He continued in the same vein: “Our MPs, MLAs and party workers come to us saying that the party can easily win the next assembly election too if we succeed in improving power supply in the state.”

The million watt question is will the BJP government at the centre genuinely help the Akhilesh Yadav government in its bid to start providing round-theclock power to people in cities and at least 16 hours power in villages from October 2016, just a few months prior to the assembly polls allowing it to walk away with the political mileage in the crucial election year.

Now, union minister of power and coal, Piyush Goyal’s last-moment decision not to come for the long-awaited meeting with the CM has not only reinforced doubts about the centre’s willingness to help UP rid its chronic power shortage.

“Goyal’s no-show has certainly given a bad message and a chance as well to the SP government to prove that the centre is not serious about helping UP tackle the power crisis,” UP Rajya Vidyut Upbhokta Parishad president Avadhesh Kumar Verma said.