UP polls: fighting for issues !

Every election in Uttar Pradesh springs a surprise by throwing up a new paradigm. In the 2007 assembly polls, Mayawati astonished everyone by bagging a majority on her own on the strength of a historic rainbow coalition that arched over the entire caste spectrum and rallied anti-Yadav forces behind her to oust Mulayam Singh's "goonda raj". Two years later, in Lok Sabha 2009, it was the Congress that dumbfounded pundits by coming second in a split verdict after Mayawati's dalit-Brahmin axis splintered.

Both BJP and Congress have shed their distaste for the caste-based poll arithmetic that has been the hallmark of the politics perfected by Mayawati and Mulayam and moved away from their traditional reliance on the upper castes.

YOUTH :

The major task before all the political parties would be to tap the youth voters. The coming Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh would turn out to be a litmus test for many scions of political families, including Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi and his cousin BJP's Varun Gandhi. UP polls has become prestige issue for Rahul after his party's bitter defeat in Bihar elections. 

"This around 53 lakh voters, who are 18 years of age, will exercise their franchise for the first time,".

ANNA EFFECT :

A day before Team Anna starts its campaign in poll-bound states from Uttarakhand, it distributed four-page pamphlets attacking the Congress-led Central government. The pamphlet read,

"Your vote can change the future of the country: Centre’s fraud".

Reports from poll-bound Uttar Pradesh suggested a partial BJP recovery resulting from two factors: the erosion in Mayawati's forward caste support and Anna Hazare's anti-corruption campaign, which drew its strength essentially from the BJP's once-core voters.

MUSLIM SECTION :

Stepping up the political ante in Uttar Pradesh ahead of the Assembly elections, the Congress has set its eye on the Muslim vote bank in the state. With an aim to repeat the party’s winning performance in last general elections, Congress scion Rahul Gandhi and his team are leaving no stone unturned to woo the Muslim voters.

The All India United Muslim Morcha, a non-political organisation of Muslims, announced support to the Congress for the forthcoming Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. Dalit Muslim Reservation Mahasammelan organised in December last year, Singh not only announced reservation for minorities, but also fulfilled it by earmarking 4.5 per cent within 27 per cent quota for OBCs.

LEADING INNOVATIONS :

Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi has formed a special team of young leaders to micro-manage the elections in UP. The Gen Next leaders, including 13 first-time MLAs from Assam, West Bengal and Rajasthan, will assist the party candidates, mainly the first-timers, in managing the election process by organising booths and supervising polling centres, apart from monitoring their campaigns.

"The idea is to put to use their experiences and the strategies they had adopted in their wins back home. It is not easy for a candidate to micro-manage the elections … The exercise will definitely help us improve our performance," a Congress functionary said.

The functionary said, "This kind of exercise is being used for the first time. If it would be successful, then replicated  in all future elections,".

There are many issues in uttar pradesh that are prevailing now a days and above all is of making false promises. Samajwadi Party and Congress are making empty promises to fool the poor people and not targeting Mayawati's anti-people rule. If mainstream national parties are feeling the pressure to give hitherto ignored groups a political voice, UP 2012 may help to shatter yet another barrier.