October 1997 merits being recorded as a milestone in Uttar Pradesh's chequered history and not merely for the spectacular manner of the BJP's return ... Mandir rather than mandal seemed to be the new buzzword – because where mandal restricted votes, mandir expanded them.
Strange things were happening in UP ... One-time BJP-baiter, the Samajwadi party's Mulayam Singh Yadav, was sounding more and more like spokesman for the BJP - whether this was in advocating the cause of the upper castes or in joining fellow OBC leader Kalyan Singh to say the most outrageous things against the BSP. The BJP ... seemed to have forgotten who its enemy was. Mr. Yadav, whose only ideology was anti-BJPism, seemed to have forgotten what his mission was.
The idiom that Mr. Yadav spoke and the symbols that he used were all distinctly upper caste Hindu ... Mr. Yadav was quoted as offering to repeal the Dalit Act .. Mr. Yadav assured job reservation to the upper castes ... Mr. Yadav talked of honouring Hindu religious sentiments; of organising meeting with sadhus and sants; of reversing the Mayawati regime's pro-Dalit measures.
Maulana Mulayam
Was this the same man who thundered, "ek parinda bhi par nahin mar sakta" (even a bird cannot fly over the Babari Masjid); who was crowned 'Maulana Mulayam' for his supposedly unwavering devotion to the Muslims? Mr. Yadav is no political novice. He is unlikely not to have known the hurt his changed worldview would cause to the Muslims and the OBCs, the backbone of his support base. If not for ideological reasons, at least in the interest of his constituency, he couldn't afford to exchange mandal for mandir. Was this not hara-kiri, then? Mr. Yadav, evidently didn't think so. The Muslims and the Yadavs were more or less captive; they had nowhere else to go. This being the case, he had only to exploit the rift between the upper castes and the BJP by consciously playing the upper caste card to add to his already substantial yote base ... In short, what was at work here was cold arithmetic, Muslims plus Yadavs plus Thakurs plus Brahmins equal to chief ministership.
Unfortunately for Mr. Yadav, he made some wrong assumptions. he presumed that the BJP-BSP pact would hold. Indeed, the success of his scheme depended on that - for only if the BSP was associated with the BJP would the upper castes turn to a new ally. He also mistakenly thought that he could beat the BJP at its own game.
Mr. Kalyan Singh may have shared bhai-bhai OBC vibes with Yadav, but he was certainly not going to stand for the latter carving up his electoral base. So, from the moment he assumed office, he was one step ahead of Yadav. While Mr. Yadav was pursuing his upper caste agenda, confident that Kalyan Singh's anti-Mayawati tirade was only a posture, the chief minister was already on the job of breaking the Congress. Kalyan Singh's aim was three-fold. Checkmate Yadav, win back the estranged upper caste and OBC communities and free himself from his alliance. The burden of Kalyan Singh's song was that the BJP-BSP pact was more damaging than beneficial: the Dalit votes it brought in would only be at the cost of the BJP's traditional upper caste and OBC votes. This argument had not cut much ice with the BJP leadership which had pushed him into the alliance; now that he was the boss, he would show them who the real boss was.
This explains why Kalyan Singh was deliberately provocative ... The G.O. against the misuse of the Dalit Act was somewhat excessive ... The non-Dalit castes read in it a message to settle scores with the Dalits ... Violence broke out as a consequence ..
Yadav joined in this anti-BSP campaign unmindful of the effect that would have on a community which had suffered the hardships of its isolation for generations; a community which was just beginning to realise its self- wroth. Yadav should have also known better than to try and fight the BJP on its own turf. The Thakurs and Brahmins, whom he was courting, went in droves, not to the SP - but to the BJP so as to give it a majority in the assembly.
... Wisdom seems to have dawned on the SP leader ... He has realised the folly of embracing an agenda that was alien to his professed beliefs. The truth is that the bulk of the upper caste voters is committed to the BJP, this has been so ever since the BJP replaced the Congress in their affections. The BSP and the SP have their own contradictions - both at the leadership and ground levels. The Dalits and the OBCs are traditionally antagonistic. But as the 1993 elections showed, this antagonism can be bridged provided the message is conveyed to voters and workers alike in an acceptable idiom ... Yadav should learn to see the BSP's predilection to change partners as the only means ... for growing. Mayawati should similarly show accommodation ..
The BSP-SP alliance has the potential to sweep the elections. Between them they polled nearly 50 per cent of votes in the last elections, which is bad news for the BJP. Even otherwise, the BJP may find it has been too clever by half. It has lost the potentially unbeatable national alliance with the BSP while adding nothing to its base ... The flood of mostly upper caste MLAs (has) reinforced its upper caste image. This altered caste equation, with the balance tilting towards the upper castes, will no doubt make for the return of the upper caste voters - but that is not an addition, only a restoration of status quo ... In other words, the best it can hope for even with a divided opposition is a return to the 1996 position when its vote stood frozen at 33.7 per cent. (Source: The Times of India, 28 October, 1997)
