RITA GIVES BJP EDGE IN BRAHMIN VOTE

The resignation of former chief of the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee Rita Bahuguna Joshi and her defection to the BJP is doubtlessly a blow to her erstwhile party which had hoped to cash in on her being a Brahmin stalwart. With elections to the U.P. assembly just a few months away the Brahmins, who constitute about 14 per cent of the State’s population, are an important vote bank. Since the Brahmin vote is normally shared between the BJP and the Congress with others getting an insignificant proportion, the Congress was wooing them assiduously hoping that the fact that they have announced the octogenarian Sheila Dikshit (a Brahmin) as their chief ministerial candidate and they had a veteran Brahmin leader in Rita Bahuguna Joshi would work to their advantage. Those hopes now stand dashed.

Adding to their discomfiture is also the fact that while Rita Bahuguna has spared Sonia Gandhi in her post-defection interviews to media, she has hit out at heir-apparent Rahul Gandhi who she regards as a poor leader whose leadership is not acceptable to the people at large. She is particularly scathing on his ‘khoon ki dalali’ remark against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the context of exploiting the ‘surgical strikes’ by the army on Pakistani terror launch pads for political ends. She contends that this would damage the Congress in U.P. and that it was poor strategising. Piqued with Prashant Kishore who was commissioned to advise on ways to resurrect the party but has in effect virtually taken over the party in Uttar Pradesh with Rahul’s patronage, Rita Bahuguna says she was completely marginalised in the new scheme of things. The Congress on its part is putting up a brave face on Rita Bahuguna’s exit. It says she was a spent force and that she belonged to a family which had a history of defections. Her brother, Vijay Bahuguna, who was a former chief minister of Uttarakhand had quit the Congress in 2014 to join the BJP and her father who was chief minister of U.P. in the 1970s had resigned from the party to float the Bharatiya Lok Dal with Charan Singh. Significantly, Vijay Bahuguna too had revolted against Rahul Gandhi’s leadership. Rita Bahuguna indeed is no mass leader but while her defection may not add much to the BJP’s standing, the damage she is expected to cause to the Congress could be considerable.

With the defection of Rita Bahuguna Joshi to the BJP, the battle in the country’s most populous state is interestingly poised. The goings-on in the Samajwadi Party where party veteran Mulayam Singh Yadav and son and chief minister Akhilesh Yadav are at loggerheads, could hit that party hard. If push comes to shove, Akhilesh could well break away and set up his own party to upstage his paternal uncle Shivpal Yadav who enjoys the support of Mulayam and was foisted by the latter as State party chief replacing Akhilesh from that additional charge. Akhilesh indeed has a clean image and is looked upon as pro-development. He is not an obscurantist and his appeal is particularly strong among the youth, but in the event of a split, he fears that much of the Samajwadi Party rank and file would go with Mulayam and his brother Shivpal. It is quite possible that a split may be averted but that can only be if Akhilesh is given at least a fair say in the distribution of tickets by the party for the Assembly polls. That would predictably hurt Mulayam’s bloated ego because many of Akhilesh’s young supporters who had been sidelined or suspended with Mulayam’s tacit support would need to be rehabilitated. If Shivpal Yadav then refuses to relent it could be Shivpal or Akhilesh for Mulayam to choose between. As things stand, the infighting in SP could work to the advantage of Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party which is consolidating the Muslim and Dalit vote behind herself. The minority Muslim vote has traditionally been divided between SP and BSP, but division in SP ranks could propel them towards BSP in a tactical vote. There is still time for the parties to reorient themselves so new equations could emerge in a state where electoral politics is beset by twists and turns.

The BJP is a crucial player in the polls and under the wily and unscrupulous party president Amit Shah it can well be the lead player by consolidating the Hindu vote in its favour. The party is making no bones about capitalising on the favourable public sentiment in the wake of the ‘surgical strikes’ that the army undertook under the BJP Central government’s mandate against terror launch pads in Pak-occupied Kashmir. As for the Congress, Rita Bahuguna Joshi’s defection has added to their woes and it is doomed under Rahul Gandhi’s stewardship. The entry of the charismatic Priyanka Vadra into the campaign fray may make some difference but it is unlikely that it would be enough to offset its losses on numerous accounts.