There are many dimensions to the Rita Bahuguna-Joshi episode which secured her two nights in jail, and resulted in several sightings of a rare creature — the Congress worker in Uttar Pradesh — coming out in numbers to the streets. It has been condemned in the strongest of terms — but the charring of Bahuguna’s house in Lucknow’s “VIP” area that followed seems to have given both sides, the ruling party in the state, the BSP, and that at the Centre, the Congress, a lot of ammunition. It was the first thud in the post-election lull, and things promise to get noisier.

A battle is on for the heart of the heartland. The assembly elections are three years away, but there will be many such political “moments” which each side will try and push to energise its workers and try and occupy the political space. The Congress in the 2007 assembly polls, at 8.5 per cent of the vote, was at an all-time low, but it went on to rise in just two years, getting 18.3 per cent of the vote in the recent general election. Now, there is a view in the Congress that it is actually not a battle for the opposition space, as that was secured in the Lok Sabha polls — now, they believe, it is a battle for who will take the baton from the BSP chief, “as she has singularly failed to inspire the state in the absolute majority the electorate handed her”.

... contd.