OpEd in the Pioneer with my take on the outcome in Uttar Pradesh dailypioneer.com/columnists/ite… (blame the editors for the title
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Offstumped (@offstumped) March 06, 2012
Predicting electoral outcomes in the treacherous swamps of heartland politics in India can be dangerous.
That the Samajwadi Party was on the rebound has been the news since Ashok Malik’s initial observations.
That there was a wave of anti-incumbency against Mayawati was less than obvious as noise from Delhi filled the air and extraneous issues took center stage from land acquisition to a Muslim sub-quota.
That the BJP’s Mahasangram, Jan Chetana had bombed was amply clear from the manner in which the election campaign in Uttar Pradesh became a below the radar, backroom affair with a belated Uma Bharti entry.
That the Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Vadra factor was good TV in as much as Anna Hazare was good for TRPs also became amply clear as multiple rounds of lowering of expectations began as well as the Congress foolishly persisted with its desperation over the Muslim vote.
But who would have thought that the voter in Uttar Pradesh would hand such a decisive verdict to the SP ?
In this victory for Akhilesh Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav it is odd that a 3rd Yadav should partake of some limelight. Yogendra Yadav stuck his neck out to go where no pollster has gone before in recent memory. Guess he may have overcompensated for some of that SP performance to err on the higher side.
Back in September of 2011 when the miasma of asinine cliches that passes for news and opinion in Delhi’s studios was focused on Sonia Gandhi’s health, Anna Hazare’s fast, the Social Spectator – an obscure online magazine carried a prolific piece of prose by Frank Huzur writing from Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh. The piece was titled “Chariot of Hope – Cycle of Change“. and it opened with these lines:
He may not be Harrison Ford. But he is surely James Dean. The rebel with a cause for socialist celebre!
In all of 2011, Google News Archives show at least 5000 odd stories on “Rahul Gandhi”. No, Frank Huzur was not talking of “Rahul Gandhi”, he was writing on Akhilesh Yadav who according to Google News Archives in 2011 managed a paltry 21 news stories. From that obscurity in 2011, Akhilesh Yadav has clearly come a long way to script his father’s comeback in Uttar Pradesh.
While the results will be analyzed threadbare in the next few hours, days and weeks there is a sobering lesson for those of us who have been conditioned to view politics in India from a Delhi lens.
No it is not on the Rahul Gandhi hype, which we were always sceptical about.
There is a deeper lesson on our conditioning that forces to think of Uttar Pradesh in purely casteist terms. This blogger had been immensely critical of a campaign strategy that focused purely on the calculus of caste while failing to project a pan-Uttar Pradesh agenda. There in lies a lesson for both analysis that held out some hope for Mayawati’s BSP as well as for a campaign strategy that viewed the BJP as a dark horse in Uttar Pradesh.
Rahul Gandhi has bombed before, and this outcome in UP is more confirmation of his limitations as a future leader for the Congress. The Nehru Gandhi brand may disproportionately sway the national discourse but it continues to underwhelm in state elections.
What is however stunning is how deeply the BJP leadership in Uttar Pradesh had its head buried in the sand. Instead of blaming amateur psephologists for decisions that ought to have been the Leadership’s gambles, the BJP needs to wake up to the reality that its status quoist strategies of incremental linear growth have run their course. There is no new ground left to break and there is little hope of reclaiming old ground.
The BJP has indeed emerged as a dark horse albeit on its way to nowhere. That the BJP needs a radical overhaul is an understatement !
Postscript:
- The BJP’s resounding win in Goa results and its partner SAD doing extremely well in Punjab to make history do little to hide the fact that it has been squeezed out of the largest state.
Tailpiece:
- The Presidential election later this year is now in flux unless the Congress manages to drive a hard bargain with the Samajwadi Party
Filed under: Advani Yatra against Corruption, Anna Hazare, Assembly elections 2011, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, उत्तर प्रदेश २०१२, Baba Ramdev, betrayal of aam admi, Indira Gandhi, Internet Hindus, Left Liberalism, Manmohan Confidence Vote, Mayawati, Narendra Modi, Nitin Gadkari, Offstumped, OpEds on Uttar Pradesh Polls 2012, Two Indias, UPA-II Critical Appraisal, Uttar Pradesh Polls 2012, Varun Gandhi
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