National
Eastern U.P. holds the key
By Neena Vyas
NEW DELHI, FEB. 5. Not since 1988 have the people of Uttar Pradesh given a majority to a single party. Even in the ongoing elections, the question that is being asked is not which party will get a majority - no party is in a position to make a credible claim - but which combination of parties is likely to form a government.
There can be no prizes for guessing that after the results there will be some hard bargaining and some quick horse- trading that will take place behind closed doors before a government is installed.
Party leaders admit that perhaps the real battle will be fought in the third phase of polls on February 21 when 166 Assembly segments of a total of 403 will go to polls. It is in this eastern part of the State, around Allahabad, Varanasi, Gorakhpur and Sultanpur that all the four major parties - Bharatiya Janata Party, Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and the Congress - will fight a close battle, for, all of them have their small areas of influence.
People have voted out one party to vote another in one Assembly segment, but the reverse has happened in the next one. The picture has remained mixed. In the last Assembly election, the BJP won about 60 seats in the region, the SP about 45, the BSP nearly 30 and even the Congress was able to bag around 15 seats (some defected later). The CPI, the CPI-M, the Janata Dal and independents were all able to take a small bite of the eastern U.P. cake.
In the Varanasi area comprising about 65 seats, for example, the BJP's strength increased from 18 seats in the 1993 Assembly elections to 30 in 1996. The same period, interestingly, also saw the rise of the SP in the region, from 11 in 1993 to 18 in 1996, both gaining at the cost of the BSP which lost heavily, its score coming down from 28 to just 6.
It will not come as a surprise if the 166 seats in eastern U.P. are more or less evenly shared by the major parties. In most seats the fight is three-cornered and small margins mark the line between defeat and victory.
In western U.P. the BJP alliance with Ajit Singh's RLD could bring them a bonanza of some 60 of the 92 seats going to polls on February 14. In the next phase on February 18, the contest in many areas is between the SP and the BSP, in others between the BJP and the SP.
It is the third phase of polling which will be the testing time for parties in U.P., for here the graph has often shown wild fluctuations, not surprisingly. For whoever they vote in or vote out, the fortunes of the people remain predictable - grinding poverty day after day.
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
National
|
