In less than a fortnight, a number of opposition leaders in UP have joined the BJP, reinforcing its poll narrative in the run-up to 2024 poll. In latest development, SP MLA Dara Singh Chauhan joined BJP days after Rajbhar’s SBSP had joined NDA as its ally. A report by Mudit Mathur
Union Home Minister Amit Shah is suddenly seen overactive in Uttar Pradesh to change the poll dynamics, once again playing the card of caste consolidation among Dalits and Other Backward Classes (OBCs). The move is aimed to overcome growing anti-incumbency visible among the masses, who are questioning the government’s fiscal policies which are resulting in heavy unemployment, price rise of essential commodities and unbearable tax burden on common man.
Political circles are keenly watching new electoral alignments with Dalit-OBC outreach, how caste configurations could overcome aspirations of the people miffed at poor implementation of its previous poll promises with regard to price rise, youth and farmers?
After the death of Samajwadi Party’s patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav, his son Akhilesh Yadav has been entrusted with the duty to carry forward his legacy among the masses but he has utterly failed due to his failure to galvanise party workers at the grassroots. Old guards of Samajwadi movement are feeling isolated in the new scheme of things. BJP leadership has seriously planned to fill the vacuum by wooing back OBC leadership that Akhilesh Yadav brought together in the 2022 state assembly elections.
However, now most of them have defected to the BJP in view of time-tested modus operandi of the “Chanakya” (master strategist) of the BJP, Amit Shah, who has been cutting into the support base of Samajwadi Party among the OBCs including its Yadav leadership. Shah is considered to be an expert in the art of manoeuvring its support base by toppling governments in many states like Madhya Pradesh, Goa, Maharashtra and some north eastern states. Now, the biggest challenge is Uttar Pradesh where in the last assembly elections, the results of eastern UP were below the satisfaction mark.
The BJP’s recent tie-up with Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) ensued after the latter’s chief, Om Parkash Rajbhar met Amit Shah in New Delhi, months after breaking up with the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party. It had contested the last assembly polls in UP in alliance with the SP. Though it won only six seats, it took away Rajbhars, a “most backward caste” with an important presence in eastern UP, causing huge loss to BJP in the region. The Deputy Chief Minister Brijesh Pathak played conduit to reconcile differences and brought back Rajbhar, who is a firebrand orator. SBSP’s clout among OBC voters, particularly in eastern UP belt is seen as a win-win situation for BJP.
