Regional parties to take centrestage in UP

After the Delhi and Bihar Assembly polls, Uttar Pradesh will be another key state in the Hindi heartland to witness a straight fight between regional parties and national parties in the coming 15 months.

While the focus of the Congress and BJP will shift to UP after the Bihar elections, the Samajwadi Party and BSP might feel compelled to re-work their electoral strategy. The Congress will be formulating its strategy after December 15 on the basis of surveys and reports of party observers. While a section of the Congress wants the high command to identify candidates at least one year before polls rather than appointing officials to the tehsil and district units, others feel the party should focus on its target group. It is unclear whether Ms Priyanka Gandhi will play a role in the coming battle against the Samajwadi Party, BJP and BSP.

Campaigning by the BJP and the ruling Samajwadi Party has already begun through communal polarisation, while the BSP’s priority is to keep its dalit vote bank intact at any cost, Congress leaders said.

If the BJP doesn’t have major stakes in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry, it will try to increase its numbers in the Assam Assembly. The Congress’ priority is to retain power in Assam and Kerala. All these five states go to the polls next year.

After a spectacular performance in the Lok Sabha elections last year, the BJP has been facing a tough challenge from regional parties. If it was forced to forge a post-poll alliance with the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra and the PDP in Jammu and Kashmir, it relied heavily on parties led by Mr Ram Vilas Paswan, Mr Jitan Ram Manjhi and Mr Upendra Kushwaha in Bihar against the JD(U)-RJD-Congress combine.

If the Congress has not succeeded yet in attracting youth in UP, which has been influenced by caste and communal politics for the last 25 years, the BSP has not been able to expand its support base. On the other hand, the Samajwadi Party is controlled by the Mulayam Singh Yadav family.

The BJP’s face will be Hindutva hardliners. Gujarat might have been the BJP’s Hindutva laboratory once upon a time, but it came to power at the Centre because of UP; this became clear when Prime Minister Narendra Modi preferred to contest the Varanasi Lok Sabha seat.