Opinion The longest campaign

The Samajwadi Party is on the backfoot,edgy and gingerly still wondering what to do with its opposition to the BSP and its complicated relationship with the Congress-led UPA. Currently,it is out of power effectively in the state and the Centre,and does not appear as sure-footed and nimble as it has in the past.

But both the BSP and the Congress sense that it is a larger battle being fought in the state,one that may need a long time to play out fully.

The caste-based parties that for 20 years thought a little “plus” vote around their core was enough to sail them to power are being forced to rethink their strategy. It is a challenging time for them,as they try to retain their “core” vote and lunge out for more,that too at a time when the Congress is in power at the Centre. Both the BSP and the Congress are trying to tantalise with the offer of what a state (or power) can deliver to the voter.

There was a meeting of Congress MPs when the prime minister spoke about Bundelkhand and the need for a special package for the drought-affected there.

Mayawati has not been far behind. She has instituted schemes,using the powers she has as chief minister,to assert how she is as good as the Congress at what the UPA claims to be delivering — equitable schemes and inclusive schemes,“pro-poor” and blind to caste (whether they are about scholarships for poor girls or most recently,home entitlement for the poor).

The past 20 years in UP saw politics centred around your last name,your community and kin,something that also went on to define what parties eventually did in office. This is not to say that the Congress regime prior to 1989 was a pious one,ensuring “inclusive” and “equitable” school attendance. But since the ’90s,the anxiousness displayed by bahubalis/ musclemen to join the party in power (whether the SP,BSP or BJP) turned into a nightmare for voters and a symbol of what the state there had grown to encompass in the post-Congress era.

Of course,the reason the Congress fell by the wayside was its inability to understand the democratic deepening that caste parties seemed to have undergone. It seemed to be in denial about caste,still dazed why it had lost,as time and newer parties held sway. But slowly,the identity idea seemed to have exhausted itself. Of late,the Congress,actively and especially through the UPA-I phase and the grand schemes it came up with,ended up showcasing the power of a state that had the capacity to better lives. Its various schemes and constant talk of employment and education pushed the idea of a state that was different from the one that had emerged in UP more recently. The state,to the average,unconnected UP resident,over the past two decades had become a realm apart — as this was one that musclemen,that the electorate politely calls “mafia”,were rushing to be patronised by,as they shifted loyalties between the SP,BSP and BJP depending upon who was in power in Lucknow.

At the moment,wiser by 20 years,the Congress is sensitised to caste as a phenomenon,but possibly wants to make that only the fine-print in a larger aspirational slogan of improving lives. The Congress has the added advantage of not having been in power for the past two decades,so there is no baggage for the first-time voter,just nostalgia.

The UP chief minister did not waste a moment before booking the UPCC president in a case after the speech was made (though regrets were issued by her shortly afterward). It was used as a point to remind her core voters that she is a Dalit first.

So,at one level the meeting of Congress MPs with the prime minister this week can be seen as a banal and straightforward call for benefiting one of the darkest corners of UP,a region which has witnessed drought and deep neglect,even by the high standards of underdevelopment in the state. But making demands like these is essentially a larger battle between two different visions or projections of what the state and state power can and should be about.

seema.chishti@expressindia.com