Similarly, in UP, the Congress polled 12 per cent votes and won 9 seats in 2004. That shows that Congress has still a vote share substantial enough to disturb the winning chances of the ruling BSP. This is more so because the BSP vote share of 30 per cent in the 2007 assembly polls was very fragile, and not much could be guaranteed on this. The only advantage for the BSP is that the BJP has also a very substantial about 20 per cent vote share. In this scenario, even minor shifts of votes may lead to a very changed electoral outcome. The Congress voters are mainly upper caste and Muslims. The upper caste voters, who otherwise may be wooed by the BSP through its social engineering, may gravitate to the Congress if the party is present, whereas the Muslim voters, being hotly chased by BSP through Nasemuddin, may find an alternative Congress window if they don’t feel like voting for SP owing to Mulayam’s sudden love for Kalyan Singh, the prime accused in Babri Masjid case. Thus, the Congress strategy to contest most of the 120 seats in UP and Bihar may help the UPA allies increase their seats without the Congress incurring any losses, and may harm the chances of the BJP-JD (U) in Bihar and BSP in Uttar Pradesh.

The writer teaches politics at Christ Church College, Kanpur