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.