Several factors conspired to boost the Congress’s fortunes here. First, the disillusionment of the Muslim voter (18.5 per cent of the state’s population) with the Samajwadi Party, a party it had unquestioningly embraced since 1991. The induction into the SP of Kalyan Singh suggested to the Muslim voter that the party was finally readying itself to consolidate the OBC vote, even if it meant disengaging itself from its Muslim core vote. For almost two decades, while Mandal politics had given the minorities a sense of relief as it applied brakes on the anti-minority wave ushered in through the Mandir movement, there had never been talk of offering anything else to a Muslim other than some security for his/ her life or jobs for Urdu teachers. Anxious to disengage with the SP, Muslims moved to fringe parties where there was a lot of anger, like in Azamgarh, and to the Congress in those seats where there was a viable candidate, like several constituencies in western UP. The triumvirate of Sonia Gandhi, the prime minister and Rahul Gandhi, and the Congress’s record over the past five years of leading a non-BJP government served as pull factors for the party.

The upper castes — a sizeable section of UP, unlike in most other states — too began their hunt for a viable claimant of their votes.

Upper caste candidates put up by parties attracted upper caste votes in some measure, but the prospect of Mayawati as prime minister hampered her effort to collect non-Dalit votes. The statues, pink stone elephants and giant memorials

... contd.