Lucknow: Smarting after a near-rout in the general election, the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party (SP-BSP) combine is in for testing times.
The next big election for Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly is due in 2022.
The SP-BSP combine won 15 of the state’s 80 Lok Sabha seats while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 62 seats, its ally Apna Dal (S) emerged victorious in two seats and the Congress won from Raebareli.
The SP had entered into a pre-poll alliance with the Congress in the 2017 Assembly election with disastrous results for both parties.
The SP’s experience with its similar pre-poll alliance with BSP for the recently concluded Lok Sabha election has been more damaging.
While the SP’s tally at five is the same as it was in 2014, this time there is the added ignominy of three members of the Mulayam Singh Yadav family losing in their bastions.
These losers are Akhilesh’s wife Dimple Yadav in Kannauj, Mulayam’s nephew Dharmendra Yadav in Badayun and Ram Gopal Yadav’s son Akshay Yadav in Firozabad.
Of the five seats won by the SP, two are that of Mulayam Singh Yadav (Mainpuri) and Akhilesh Yadav (Azamgarh).
The other three victorious SP candidates are ST Hasan (Moradabad), Mohammad Azam Khan (Rampur) and Shafiqur Rahman Barq (Sambhal).
Mulayam has won the Mainpuri seat with a reduced margin of about 94,000, which is one-fourth of the 3.64 lakh victory margin in 2014.
Mulayam had, in the aftermath of the SP-BSP alliance, cautioned Akhilesh and other party leaders about paying a huge price for the same.
BSP gainer
Many SP leaders believe that the jolt of 2019 is much greater than that of 2017, since this time the alliance was with a long-time rival BSP, which has not only got revived at the cost of SP but may emerge as a bigger challenge for SP in coming days.
The BSP, on the combined strength of its own supporters as well as those of the SP, won 10 seats – up from zero it had achieved in 2014.
The recurrent theme among SP workers is that the BSP did not do enough to ensure the victory of at least Dimple Yadav in Kannauj, Dharmendra Yadav in Badayun and Akshay Yadav in Firozabad. Even the ordinary SP workers feel that the vote transfer from BSP to SP did not take place to the extent it happened from SP to BSP, resulting in disappointing results for SP.
Shivpal factor
Another factor that weakened the SP was the decision of estranged SP leader Shivpal Yadav, Mulayam's brother, to form his own party and especially contest from those seats considered SP strongholds.
In the process, he himself contested from Firozabad and lost, but Shivpal also ensured the loss of nephew Akshay Yadav.
Also, the lack of support from Shivpal's supporters was among the major reason for Dimple's defeat from Kannauj.
BJP makes amends for bypoll loss
The SP also lost the two seats that it won famously in the 2018 by-elections - Gorakhpur and Phulpur.
While Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had vacated Gorakhpur, Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Maurya had resigned from Phulpur.
The SP had then managed to convince the BSP to put up common candidates from both places.
The strategy led to an embarrassing loss for the BJP in both places in the bypolls last year, but the BJP has wrested these seats with bigger margins in the just-concluded Lok Sabha polls.
Seats in BSP's kitty
The constituencies won by BSP are Saharanpur (Haji Fajlur Rehman), Bijnore (Malook Nagar), Nagina (Girish Chandra), Amroha (Kunwar Danish Ali), Ambedkar nagar (Ritesh Pandey), Shrawasti (Ram Shiromani), Lalganj (Sangeeta Azad), Ghosi (Atul Kumar Singh), Jaunpur (Shyam Singh Yadav) and Ghazipur (Afzal Ansari).
It clearly indicates that the BSP had chosen its seats wisely while the SP faltered on that count.
The BSP was confident of its own voters as well as vote transfer from SP in these places, while the SP appeared floundering.
Amethi too sign of losing grip
Another example of the slipping control of SP and BSP over their traditional supporters is the defeat of Congress president Rahul Gandhi from Amethi, despite a specific appeal made in his favour by both Mayawati and Akhilesh during the campaign.
Likely options for SP
The challenge before SP president Akhilesh Yadav is now to consolidate his own flock, motivate his supporters and start preparing for 2022, even as BSP chief Mayawati continues to dominate the opposition space with 11 MPs.
Since Akhilesh’s experiment with the Congress and the BSP has not been much useful, a silent rapprochement with Shivpal Yadav could be a logical move, according to many SP sympathisers.
Since both Akhilesh and Shivpal swear by Mulayam’s advice, the patriarch may come up with a patch-up suggestion. It remains unclear whether Akhilesh would be ready to ditch Mayawati so soon after the election debacle, as it would mean earning her wrath again.
