If the SP-Congress alliance fails, both the parties may have to pay a price next year and in 2024.
In Uttar Pradesh, the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Indian National Congress form natural alliance partners in many ways. Their social bases complement each other, their ideological perspectives do not differ too much, and they have displayed a great degree of coherence in the context of the campaign’s issues. Nevertheless, the two parties are currently in the middle of a fierce tussle, with each accusing the other of collusion with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The SP has called the Congress the other side of the BJP, which is part of a saffron strategy to mislead voters, while the Congress has accused the SP of being too afraid of the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate to counter the BJP. ,
incentive for a link
So a fundamental question is why are these two parties hesitant to commit to a potentially mutually beneficial alliance? The answer to this question may help to highlight the state of opposition politics, both in the state and in the country, which has been shaped in fundamental ways by the BJP-dominated system. First, let us evaluate the matter of alliance from the point of view of both sides.
The incentives for Congress are relatively straightforward. Talking about the last two elections in UP, the Congress has been reduced to a 6% vote-share party, which has barely any stronghold. Evidence from assembly bypolls and panchayat elections since then has reinforced this notion, not to mention Congress leaders’ frequent exits from the party for greener pastures. Failure to form an alliance with a large party could mean electoral collapse like in Delhi and West Bengal. Being the face of the UP campaign, it could also irreparably damage the image of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra – the party’s last remaining ‘trump card’. It may be instructive to remember here that Rahul Gandhi was first tainted with the image of a political novice after leading the disastrous 2012 campaign in Uttar Pradesh.
The draw is no less attractive for the Samajwadi Party. So far the emphasis of the Samajwadi campaign has been on making the battle of UP a bipolar contest. The trouble is that a direct fight with a party with a large social base is a losing proposition, a massive anti-incumbency wave that has not yet surfaced. The BJP is a political giant in Uttar Pradesh, with a social catchment area ranging from upper castes, non-Yadav OBCs and non-Jatav Dalits. In a sense, the party’s social base in UP is almost on par with that of the BJP and Janata Dal (United) in neighboring Bihar. The SP, meanwhile, is anchored by its traditionally narrow social base, Yadavs and Muslims.
The SP knows this, and its leader Akhilesh Yadav has spent most of his political life inspiring his party to adopt a new umbrella avatar. Still, the party hasn’t long done the hard yards of social engineering: building community leaders, cultivating grassroots caste alliances, or immersing itself in new socio-political movements. It has now gone for the fastest route available: alliances with an array of smaller parties. This, the party hopes, will not only boost its electoral arithmetic, but will also help the SP’s social acceptability among smaller parties’ specific caste and community constituents. Therefore, it makes sense for the SP to hold the hand of the Congress, which in a way represents the smallest parties in UP.
What, then, explains the panic at the prospect of coming together? There are three reasons for this, all of which highlight an aspect of the BJP’s electoral and ideological dominance.
fall of congress
First, the rapid decline of the Congress during the Narendra Modi era has reached a point where, in many states, it is not even a credible junior partner. Congress’s recent record in the Grand Alliance hardly praises any potential contender. While the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the three Left parties won more than half of the seats they contested in last year’s elections in Bihar, the Congress proved to be a deadly weak link. This was not unusual as the Congress has been a backward coalition partner in several state elections, from Tamil Nadu in 2016 to Maharashtra in 2019. Of course, Akhilesh Yadav has had personal experience of this incident in the previous elections, where the Congress had won. worse than sp
Meanwhile, the Congress, as a party that is slowly inching towards an existential crisis, fears that it may no longer be trapped in a state of low equilibrium. The mood in the party goes back to the Pachmarhi resolution of 1998, which declared that only those alliances would be considered which are “absolutely necessary” and which “will not weaken the party”. A long-standing thread in the Congress’s thinking holds that the only way for the party to revive its social base and rejuvenate its organization is through widespread struggle directed against both regional parties as well as the BJP. is from.
BJP’s dominance
Second, the BJP’s ideological dominance over issues of religion and nationalism has ensured that the success of opposition parties in state elections depends on the extent to which they can neutralize the prominence of ‘national’ issues and on ‘local’ issues. The presence of a national party like the Congress in an opposition alliance, especially one that has been the BJP’s most obvious ideological opponent under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi, hinders such a strategy.
The Gandhi brothers and sisters showed no caution to regional leaders like Akhilesh Yadav in challenging Mr. Modi and making him an electoral factor. After all, the Congress leadership sees the Uttar Pradesh elections as a springboard to prepare itself as a national alternative to the BJP in the next general election.
Third, the dominance of the BJP has turned Muslims into a uniquely radioactive political community. The SP party understands that any alliance with the Congress will be portrayed by the BJP as an ‘unholy alliance’ that aims to strengthen the ‘Muslim votebank’. Even though the Congress has been claiming to maintain a base among Brahmins and non-Jatav Dalits in UP for a long time, it has all but vanished. In the 2019 elections, only 6% of Brahmins and 7% of non-Jatav Dalits in Uttar Pradesh supported the party, roughly corresponding to its 6% total vote-share in the state. The Congress’s only major support base remains among Muslims, with 14% overall in 2019 choosing the party, and especially in seats where the Congress got a chance.
This is perhaps the most important reason why Akhilesh Yadav enjoys the privilege of forming alliances with smaller parties such as the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP), Janwadi Party and Mahan Dal. Since the social base of these parties extends to one or more Hindu caste groups, the SP can lump them together and portray itself as a larger ‘Hindu alliance’. This coalition strategy is also in line with the SP’s recent political outreach, where it has aggressively attracted non-Yadav OBC castes, scheduled castes and Brahmins, but only extended the rarest and indirect gestures towards Muslims. The political logic behind this approach is that once the party has proved that the BJP has a support base among its rival Hindus, Muslims will automatically turn to it for a third option, as in the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi. And Trinamool Congress has shown. West Bengal.
Of course, there is the possibility that the current feud between the two parties represents nothing more than skillful jockeying for a large part in a potential alliance. In the midst of this dichotomy, the Congress can establish itself as a major player and the SP can project itself as the only alternative pole.
However, if this marriage really fails, there may be a price to be paid by both parties. Congress’s obstinate attitude could prove fatal not only in these elections but also for its hopes of forming a united opposition against the BJP in 2024. Meanwhile, the SP can consider a range of in-between options without any compromise. Congress and the bad deal it had with it last time. For a party that has never breached its 30% vote-share threshold, facing the BJP in a seemingly bipolar contest, it does not have the luxury of turning down allies.
Asim Ali is a political researcher and columnist based in Delhi
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