Quite a few friends and colleagues advise me not to write on politics. Now that’s problematic for me, because politics and politicians intrude into every nook and cranny of our lives, and can only be ignored at our own peril. I remember the wise words of Cicero: ‘You may not be interested in politics but that does not mean that politics is not interested in you.’ And so, I return this week to my home state of Ulta Pradesh, and the impending elections there, with my two bits. The waters in this Indo-Gangetic bathtub have never been of RO quality, but over the last five years they have become of cess-pool quality; it has become the worst performing state in the country according to Niti Aayog itself, its once vaunted bureaucracy reduced to scavenging for favours, its police a raptorial uniformed force. Yogi and his party have not been able to deliver on any tangible because they have been too obsessed with the manufacture of hate and repression on an industrial scale, and civil services have been rendered dysfunctional. But it would be unfair to single out Yogi alone: his job has not been made easier by the monumental failures of Mr. Modi, from outright dissembling to destruction of the economy, Olympian arrogance, cronyism, pandemic blunders, delusions of grandeur and encouragement of religious bigotry. Modi and Shah have a monumental dilemma now in UP- they want to win the state desperately but don’t want Yogi around when they do so, lest he present a challenge to the Supreme Leader and Sancho Panza in 2024. In all likelihood their first wish will not be granted, the second will. Even the contrived “opinion polls” of the lap dog media predict that the BJP will lose between 150 to 170 seats from their 2017 tally, mainly to Akhilesh Yadav. Allowing for a margin of sycophancy of 25%, this translates into the loss of UP for the party. It is not just the belaboured farmers or the betrayed OBCs or the oppressed Dalits who will upset the BJP’s apple-cart. This time the youth will form a distinct constituency by itself, cutting across party, caste and religious lines. With the highest unemployment rate of all major states, practically no recruitment in the last five years, their protests being suppressed by unimaginable police brutality, they are poised to pose a major threat to the Yogi. The self-confessed Kshatriya has displayed utter contempt for too many sections of society for too long, and will reap the whirlwind on the 10th of March. Mayawati, by her characteristic opportunistic passivity, is hoping to play the kingmaker in case of a hung Assembly. She is likely to be disappointed too- her 20% traditional vote share contains a large proportion of Muslim votes, which are likely to desert her this time in favour of the SP. So will a section of her captive Jatavs, disillusioned with her repeated failure to take a position on atrocities on Dalits (as in the Hathras case). Her vote share could slip to about 14% or 15%- bad news for the BJP. The Congress is bound to increase its vote share from the 6% it got in 2017: it had contested a little more than 100 seats then but is fighting on all 403 now. If it manages to win about 15 to 20 seats (a distinct possibility with Priyanka Gandhi’s appeal to women voters), it can then set the balance right if there’s a fractured mandate.
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