The Hindustan Times, 28 April, 1999

In the caste-dominated electoral politics of the State, the upper castes and minorities once again hold the passport to power for the major players.

As always, Uttar Pradesh will remain the nerve centre of the forthcoming battle of ballots with ... 85 Lok Sabha seats. The Other Backward Classes and Dalits decided the fate of candidates from the end of 1980 till recently. Now, however, the upper castes and minorities are in the limelight. The reasons are several. Of late, there has been a perceptible change in the mood of the minorities towards the Congress. The reasons are two-fold. First time, the best healer, has worked to the advantage of the Congress as the animosity of the minorities towards the Congress of the Narasimha Rao days is becoming diluted with each passing day.

Second, the minorities have seen the party revive and recover under the leadership of Congress president Sonia Gandhi even as the Third Force failed to fight the BJP at the national level ... Added to this, the government-formation fiasco has made them angry with the Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav. The common refrain here has been that he should have allowed the Congress to come to power. However, this does not essentially mean that the minorities have decided to desert Mr. Yadav completely. The SP's campaign ... would focus on minority-related issues like reservations ... On the other hand, the Congress ... may find it difficult to take a very aggressive pro-Muslim stand fearing an upper caste backlash. Nevertheless, the minority vote is likely to be divided between the SP and the Congress, which will work to the advantage of the BJP.

But, for the BJP too, the path to victory is not going to be that easy, specially as the upper castes have been unhappy with it ... Thus a division in the upper castes' vote bank cannot be ruled out completely.

The Hindustan Times, 12 May, 1999

The battle between the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Congress(I) in Uttar Pradesh is getting fiercer day by day with the trading of charges and burning of effigies .. Clearly, both the Congress(I) and the SP have the Muslim vote bank, which accounts for about 16 per cent of the votes in Uttar Pradesh, in their sights and are, therefore, trying to gain the upper hand on the eve of Lok Sabha poll. The SP owes much to the combination of Yadav-Muslim votes for its success in netting as many as 20 out of the 85 Lok Sabha seats in the State during the previous elections. The Congress(I) had drawn a blank in comparison against the five it won in 1996 ..

The fate of the SP depends largely on the attitude of the Muslims, who are presently gripped by a confusion over the developments at the Centre ...

Mulayam Singh has little to worry regarding the Muslims, who are not likely to waste their ballots to concede any advantage to the BJP.

Except in the case where the Congress(I) goes in for seat adjustments with the BSP, which has refused to ally with any party, Muslims are unlikely to desert Mulayam Singh in a decisive manner. In that case, the BSP will lay its claim to over three-fourths of the Lok Sabha seats, which the Congress(I) is unlikely to accept.

The Pioneer, 25 May, 1999

The winds of change sweeping the region are hardly pleasant for Mulayam Singh Yadav and are bound to send shivers down his spine. The reason is simple enough, the Muslim vote is floating. The mood of the community is undergoing a change. The SP is slowly being dismissed as a party which has outlived its utility and the Congress is being touted as 'not all that bad', having apologised and renewed its pledge to secularism.

It would be naïve to say that the SP has been done away with ... The feeling has rekindled old loyalties in the people who joined hands with Mulayam in a reaction against the Congress ... Interestingly, the Muslims, as a vote-base, are losing their influence because the Hindu-Muslim polarisation, the glue which helped keep the community together, at least electorally, is gone.

The Muslim mood is swinging curiously, even in constituencies which should continue with the SP ... The chances of division of Muslim votes to the benefit of BJP is being considered by all, but few seem to care ... What has provoked people to rethink about the Congress is its being a serious contender for power and its appeal among the upper caste Hindus, who, Muslims feel, will never opt for Mulayam. The SP leader, on the other hand, has failed to play a significant role in the state and the Centre ...

But Muslims are still vacillating and are yet to arrive at a decision. They are thinking of the Congress while Mulayam is still their leader. The anger against the SP chief is clearly divided along rural-urban lines. The disenchantment with him is evident in cities but is absent in villages ... The fall of the Union government is not an issue in the dusty villages and there are no complaints against netaji.

However, SP diehards-now-Congress-converts feel the mood will reach villages as elections come closer ... One wonders why should Muslims desert SP when the Congress is not even standing on its legs in terms of organisational infrastructure, the car reaches Deochara, the mid-point on the Badayun-Bareilly road.

Mahaul is the key word for a party which has nothing to lose vis-à-vis the Muslims. The clerics, intellectuals and commoners from the community say the decision will be taken only when elections are near but say the tension between Muslims and the SP is palpable. (Source: The Pioneer, 25 May, 1999)