The Samajwadi Party’s (SP) support to the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre on the N-deal is all set to alter the complexion of UP politics
LUCKNOW: The Samajwadi Party’s (SP) support to the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre on the N-deal is all set to alter the complexion of UP politics in a big way in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls.
Apart from a bitter scramble for the Muslim vote between arch regional rivals Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and SP, national parties — the Congress and BJP — will also have to rejig their electoral strategies.
Mayawati’s sarcastic take on the emerging political situation in UP on Friday gave a fair idea of the change. “The Congress is compelled to take support from a leader whose face it did not like to see sometime ago," she said at a press meet.
Indeed, no one would have forgotten that a major highlight of the three years of Mulayam rule in UP (2003-06) was a bitter war between the SP and the Congress. Meanwhile, Mayawati and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi grew quite fond of each other. But things have taken an about-turn.
The pitch has been queered by the SP-BSP spat over the Muslim votebank. Mindful of the Muslim angle to the N-deal, Mayawati played her Muslim card shrewdly: "Any international deal the government enters into should...also be acceptable to people at large and no particular community should be opposed to it.”
On Wednesday, Mayawati played host to a clutch of senior Shia and Sunni maulanas at her official residence who thanked her for her resolute stand against the N-deal.
However, SP general secretary Shivpal Singh Yadav told DNA: "Mayawati is the last person who should talk about Muslim welfare. She has formed the government thrice with BJP support, campaigned for Narendra Modi and RSS chief KC Sudarshan has been praising her social engineering.” Mulayam is dropping a respected Muslim name — former president APJ Abdul Kalam, saying he backed the deal after the scientist said it was in the country’s interest.
The BSP’s biggest challenge for the time being is to establish itself as the most credible anti-BJP choice for the Muslim voter compared to the allegedly pro-US Congress-SP combine. A tall order indeed.
g_deepak@dnaindia.net
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