Transferring votes will be SP, BSP’S big challenge

2019 POLLS If the SP-BSP Lok Sabha bypoll camaraderie prevails at the ground level, the two leaders can easily upset BJP’S applecart

LUCKNOW: After equitable distribution of Uttar Pradesh’s 80 Lok Sabha seats between themselves in the upcoming general election, the Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) face the tough task of transferring their traditional votes to each other.

After its first alliance with the SP in 1993, the BSP entered into a pre-poll pact with the Congress in the 1996 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls but failed to win a majority and form government. A few months later, Mayawati dumped her pre-poll partner to join hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and form government.

As Mayawati said on Saturday, the Congress had failed to transfer its votes to BSP candidates. Similarly, her experiments in government formation in an alliance with the BJP always ended in strife and stress. The lessons the SP has learned from alliances have been no different. While their leaders exchanged flowers and sent apt messages to their cadre, transferring votes will remain a major challenge. Mayawati said she had left behind the 1995 state guest house episode -- an incident in which she was abused and beaten up by SP workers angered by her decision to pull out of an alliance with their party. SP president Akhilesh responded, “Her insult will be my insult.”

Perhaps, at a personal level, time has been the best healer.

The question whether they will succeed in transferring their votes to each other in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections is still valid. The Yadavs and Dalits have been rivals until the other day in Uttar Pradesh’s agrarian society.

The answer lies in the neighbouring state of Bihar, where Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar won the 2015 assembly elections together despite years of animosity between their main base vote base the Yadavs and Kurmis, respectively. This was possible as the two leaders had diligently worked together to bring their estranged cadre under one banner.

To be sure, Kumar dumped Prasad two years later.

In the same Bihar, an alliance between Ram Vilas Paswan and Prasad in the 2010 assembly polls had failed to the extent that even Prasad’s wife Rabri Devi lost her seat. In the words of Paswan, “They (Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party and Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal) had no heart-to-heart connection.”

According to people in the SP and BSP, Akhilesh and Mayawati may address a few rallies together in parts of the state. In 1993, BSP founder Kanshi Ram and SP patriarch Mulayam Singh addressed a couple of meetings together, but later decided to hold independent shows.

Even in 2017, the alliance between Congress and SP failed to percolate down to the grassroots in the absence of joint rallies by them. Party workers became inactive in constituencies contested by their partner.

But now that the two castes are feeling marginalised in the current BJP dispensation, their coming together may prove much easier than before.

That was reflected in last year’s Lok Sabha bypolls. Camaraderie between their cadre helped them win Gorakhpur and Phulpur, the respective constituencies of chief minister Yogi Adityanath and deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya.if this camaraderie prevails in the coming months at the ground level, the two leaders can easily upset the BJP’S applecart.

NOW THAT THE YADAVS AND DALITS ARE FEELING MARGINALISED IN THE CURRENT BJP GOVT, THEIR (SP AND BSP) COMING TOGETHER MAY PROVE MUCH EASIER THAN BEFORE AS REFLECTED IN LS BYPOLLS