The Samajwadi Party performed terribly in its chief theatre of operation, Uttar Pradesh, in the general election earlier this year, while the Bharatiya Janata Party swept India’s most populous state.
But these divergent electoral outcomes have led to similar realignments in the two parties, with the emergence of multiple power centres in each – four, coincidentally, in each case.
The SP, which rules the state, won just five of Uttar Pradesh’s 80 Lok Sabha seats. The BJP won 71 seats, stunning observers, and appears confident of a similar sweep in the state Assembly elections of 2017.
Akhilesh Yadav remains chief minister of the state, but insiders in the SP say he has little control over three independent power centres that have been strengthened by the poll drubbing.
Akhilesh faces three threats
Akhilesh finds himself in a difficult situation after the party's poll debacle. He has faced criticism from his father, Mulayam Singh Yadav, and other relatives. Mulayam has himself been weakened by the general election because of the perception that a sizeable chunk of Yadav voters deserted him for the BJP.
This has gone a long way in strengthening the position of the party’s Muslim face, Azam Khan. As the state’s urban development and parliamentary affairs minister, Khan is a powerful member of the state government and has often embarrassed the chief minister with his outbursts.
Khan has become even more important after the election because the Muslim vote has assumed utmost significance for the SP. As the Yadav vote has been eroded, Muslims are the only committed voter base left to the SP. Yet even the Muslim community has begun to feel that voting for the SP makes sense only if the Yadavs also support the party – it is only with both communities voting together that there is a chance of defeating the BJP.
So as the party attempts to recover the Yadav vote, it must contend with the possibility that Muslims will also begin deserting it. This is why Azam Khan now wields as much clout as Akhilesh.
No less significant are the the chief minister’s uncles, Shivpal Yadav and Ramgopal Yadav. Shivpal is the state irrigation and public works development minister and exercises great control over a considerable number of state legislators. Ramgopal, in turn, has his own set of loyalists.
The rise of these three power centres has caused havoc in the party, with the factionalism at the top trickling down to almost every district. Worried that the party is self-destructing, Mulayam has been trying to pacify rival groups, but they continue to openly oppose one another.
After the mithai
In the BJP, the general election result has stirred ambitions to such an extent that four leaders have been aggressively positioning themselves as the party’s chief ministerial candidate.
Pankaj Singh, Varun Gandhi, Amit Shah and Yogi Adityanath Pankaj Singh, are all in the running, and none seems ready to give up. Pankaj Singh, the son of home minister Rajnath Singh, considers himself to be the future Thakur leader of the BJP in the state. Varun Gandhi, a parliamentarian from Sultanpur, and Amit Shah, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's closest aide, are party general secretaries. Adityanath, who represents Gorakhpur in the Lok Sabha, is the firebrand Hindutva face in eastern UP.
These chief ministerial candidates are being promoted frantically by their supporters on social media, according to a report in the Indian Express. While six Facebook accounts are promoting Varun Gandhi, five are doing so for Shah, three for Pankaj Singh and two for Adityanath.
It transpires that these are not the only BJP politicians in the state who with growing ambition. In the event there is a mid-term poll there could be an unseemly scramble.
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But these divergent electoral outcomes have led to similar realignments in the two parties, with the emergence of multiple power centres in each – four, coincidentally, in each case.
The SP, which rules the state, won just five of Uttar Pradesh’s 80 Lok Sabha seats. The BJP won 71 seats, stunning observers, and appears confident of a similar sweep in the state Assembly elections of 2017.
Akhilesh Yadav remains chief minister of the state, but insiders in the SP say he has little control over three independent power centres that have been strengthened by the poll drubbing.
Akhilesh faces three threats
Akhilesh finds himself in a difficult situation after the party's poll debacle. He has faced criticism from his father, Mulayam Singh Yadav, and other relatives. Mulayam has himself been weakened by the general election because of the perception that a sizeable chunk of Yadav voters deserted him for the BJP.
This has gone a long way in strengthening the position of the party’s Muslim face, Azam Khan. As the state’s urban development and parliamentary affairs minister, Khan is a powerful member of the state government and has often embarrassed the chief minister with his outbursts.
Khan has become even more important after the election because the Muslim vote has assumed utmost significance for the SP. As the Yadav vote has been eroded, Muslims are the only committed voter base left to the SP. Yet even the Muslim community has begun to feel that voting for the SP makes sense only if the Yadavs also support the party – it is only with both communities voting together that there is a chance of defeating the BJP.
So as the party attempts to recover the Yadav vote, it must contend with the possibility that Muslims will also begin deserting it. This is why Azam Khan now wields as much clout as Akhilesh.
No less significant are the the chief minister’s uncles, Shivpal Yadav and Ramgopal Yadav. Shivpal is the state irrigation and public works development minister and exercises great control over a considerable number of state legislators. Ramgopal, in turn, has his own set of loyalists.
The rise of these three power centres has caused havoc in the party, with the factionalism at the top trickling down to almost every district. Worried that the party is self-destructing, Mulayam has been trying to pacify rival groups, but they continue to openly oppose one another.
After the mithai
In the BJP, the general election result has stirred ambitions to such an extent that four leaders have been aggressively positioning themselves as the party’s chief ministerial candidate.
Pankaj Singh, Varun Gandhi, Amit Shah and Yogi Adityanath Pankaj Singh, are all in the running, and none seems ready to give up. Pankaj Singh, the son of home minister Rajnath Singh, considers himself to be the future Thakur leader of the BJP in the state. Varun Gandhi, a parliamentarian from Sultanpur, and Amit Shah, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's closest aide, are party general secretaries. Adityanath, who represents Gorakhpur in the Lok Sabha, is the firebrand Hindutva face in eastern UP.
These chief ministerial candidates are being promoted frantically by their supporters on social media, according to a report in the Indian Express. While six Facebook accounts are promoting Varun Gandhi, five are doing so for Shah, three for Pankaj Singh and two for Adityanath.
It transpires that these are not the only BJP politicians in the state who with growing ambition. In the event there is a mid-term poll there could be an unseemly scramble.
