UP CM's move to honour Emergency sufferers at par with freedom fighters has brought him closer to the Sangh Parivar than ever before.
LUCKNOW: UP Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav is preparing to play one of the most risky gambles of his political career. His latest move to honour Emergency sufferers at par with freedom fighters has brought him closer to the Sangh Parivar than ever before.
At an elaborate programme in Lucknow on Monday, Mulayam declared a Rs 500 monthly allowance for those who were jailed during the Emergency. It's a well-known fact that almost all of these "Emergency sufferers" belong to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the veritable thinktank of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Significantly, Mulayam on Tuesday had a two-hour meeting with NDA convenor George Fernandes who had shared the stage with him at the political prisoners' programme on Monday. "We have worked together in the past and we would continue to do so in the future," Fernandes told mediapersons after Tuesday's meeting, giving clear indications that he could act as the bridge between Mulayam and the BJP.
The move may have surprised many but opposition leaders are now recounting Mulayam's earlier dalliances with the Sangh Parivar. Last year, RSS veteran Nanaji Deshmukh hosted a training camp for Samajwadi Party workers at his ashram in Chitrakoot in UP. Mulayam had shared the stage with Deshmukh. At that time, the event was dismissed as an aberration. But certain events after the riots in UP's Mau district earlier this year compelled keen political watchers to realise that there was much more than an innocent deviation. Former UP CM and now BJP president Rajnath Singh's dharna in protest against the riots in Varanasi was abruptly called off after a clandestine late-night meeting between the RSS chief KC Sudarshan and Mulayam at the CM House in Lucknow.
"We have been watching this all along. It is now clear as glass that Mulayam has the blessings of the RSS," senior state Congress leader Siraj Mehdi declared at a press conference here on Tuesday. "Mulayam has all along been deceiving the Muslims. Now they know the reality which is why Mulayam is desperate," he said. It is being pointed out that the scheme to honour the Emergency sufferers as "freedom fighters" was drawn up in an unseemly hurry and no groundwork had been done. Neither the organisers nor the officials present on the dais at Monday's grand function had any idea of how many such "victims" were there in UP. The figures offered varied between 2,000 to 20,000. Political watchers are saying that Mulayam is indeed in a desperate situation as there are all the indications that his Muslim votebank is caught in an anti-establishment mode and might be slipping in favour of Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party.
This has apparently driven him to angle for the urban votebank which has traditionally backed the BJP. But with the steep decline of the BJP, this section could be won over with the help of the RSS which has an immensely efficient organisation in the urban areas. For the time being, it is Mulayam's fate that seems to hang in balance. But if Mulayam joins forces with the Sangh Parivar, it would turn the entire political scenario in UP upside down.
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