UP shows the way for a resurgent Opposition

IN 2004, Uttar Pradesh scripted the downfall of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, flattening the trumpeted ‘India Shining’ slogan crafted by the BJP to reveal the underbelly in the quotidian lives of people coping with hunger and unemployment. Twenty years later, it fell on UP again to rewrite the denouement of a saga whose beginning and middle seemed predestined. Few were ready for the last chapter of the elections that changed course after Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and West Bengal threw up unexpected outcomes. Together, these states send 170 MPs to the 543-member Lok Sabha.

The Opposition is not about to displace the BJP-led NDA. Narendra Modi will be there as the PM for a third term. But he is likely to preside over a dispensation with a shrunken majority, which will subject him to the checks and balances that a diminished mandate carries, especially if he is held to account for his claim in Parliament of 370 seats for the BJP and 400 for the NDA.

UP has been the BJP’s ‘karmabhoomi’ since 2014. The seeds of its revival were sown in a western town, Muzaffarnagar, in the sugar belt, populated dominantly by the Jats. Muzaffarnagar was scarred by a bloody bout of communal violence in 2013, the likes of which was seen in UP after years. The resulting Hindu-Muslim divide paid dividends to the BJP the state over, but its aftermath persisted in every election thereafter until 2022. Hindus and especially Jats smiled sweetly at visiting journalists, celebrated their ‘bhaichara’ (brotherhood) with Muslims in poetry, voted the BJP and retrospectively explained their decision as born out of insecurity for Hindus. Muslims were pragmatic and admitted that they had no hope either from politicians or civil society.

Yet, this year, Muzaffarnagar — of all places — turned its back on the BJP, voting out two-time BJP MP Sanjeev Kumar Balyan and voting in Harendra Singh Malik of the Samajwadi Party (SP), accused in these parts of ‘appeasing’ Muslims. So did Saharanpur, where the BJP had thrived on religious polarisation. It went to the SP’s ally, the Congress. A change of heart? Fatigue with communal politics? Why did UP vote the way it did?

Every issue, be it reservation, welfare politics or even a leader’s charisma, has a shelf life. So too does the ‘communal card’ — it can’t be overplayed. Muslims have not retaliated against provocations and incitements during the BJP rule. They have remained unprovoked by the BJP’s incessant baiting and dares from the Yogi Adityanath government. If they don’t react, what’s in it for the Hindus to act? Issues of livelihood, especially for the young who used to get swayed by the Bajrang Dal school of proactivism but bore the brunt of the economic paralysis following the Covid pandemic, preoccupied the voters.

UP’s Opposition, led by the SP’s Akhilesh Yadav and the Congress’ Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, were reticent about Hindutva and the caste factor. Indeed, while choosing candidates, Akhilesh nominated only five Yadavs from his family lest he was accused of pandering to his caste. If caste figured in their discourse, it was contextualised in the threat to the Constitution and statutory reservation by the BJP which persuaded many Dalits to abandon the BSP and vote for the SP.

Most of all, it was the subterranean tension between Adityanath and the BJP’s central command that beset the UP BJP, fuelled by the speculation that his days as the CM were numbered and he would go the way of Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Vasundhara Raje because Modi allegedly perceived him as a threat to himself.

Will Adityanath become the first casualty of the BJP’s reversals? A pushback is not easy because UP is not the only state that turned against the BJP. Would the CMs of Rajasthan and Maharashtra and the feisty Suvendu Adhikari of West Bengal be similarly penalised for the below-par showing in their states?

It is tantalising to speculate if Modi’s writ would be allowed to prevail over such matters like before. Bitten more than once — and there are instances to demonstrate that the paterfamilias, the RSS, was overruled when tickets were distributed in these elections — the Sangh will see an opportunity to reassert itself, subtly or proactively, as KS Sudarshan, a former ‘sarsanghchalak’, did when Vajpayee was the PM.

Of immediate worry to a weaker BJP would be the equation between the Centre and the states ruled by the party, which Modi recast in the Indira Gandhi template of dumping leaders at will and replacing them with rootless wonders.

The allies, who lay low for the past five years, might get a fresh lease of life, especially N Chandrababu Naidu — who steered Andhra Pradesh and the NDA to victory on his own steam — Nitish Kumar, whose Janata Dal (United) bagged more seats than the BJP in Bihar and even the breakaway Sena and NCP factions in Maharashtra which did the BJP’s bidding in the elections and delivered a patchy performance.

The past five years also saw the denigration of institutions, examples of which are too many to be recounted. The Election Commission’s conduct of the elections elicited scrutiny and disapprobation from the Opposition and watchdog groups. Yet, there was no accountability of the political executive.

A robust Opposition is just what is required to fill a much-needed vacuum. The INDIA bloc hangs together as a loose coalition which seems to have come into own now. Its ability to function as an effective counterpoint in Parliament and outside will depend on its cohesiveness and willingness to work on a common agenda. Is that too much of an expectation?