Others say for a man who had founded and nurtured a political party into one of the biggest and most influential regional outfits in the country this was the unkindest cut of all.
Still others maintain that the wily old politician had planned this whole family drama from scratch and this was his ploy to upstage Prime Minister Narendra Modi who, according to most opinion polls, is poised to lead his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) into victory in next month’s assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh.
Analysts and observers, like political parties, widely differ in their perspective of Yadav family feud that had been unfolding over the past couple of months but almost everyone feels Uttar Pradesh will be the better for it now that the Election Commission of India has recognised the Samajwadi Party (SP) faction led by Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav as the official one and given him the party’s symbol, cycle, leaving his father and founder Mulayam to cut his own path afresh at the ripe old age of 77.
Some had felt that Mulayam would indeed cut a fresh path that will lead into a quiet sunset. But those hopes have been belied already as the veteran of many a political and wrestling battle has already declared he would fight his son on all fronts if, in the event of the SP returning to power, Akhilesh did not implement pro-minority (read pro-Muslim) programmes.
“I always advocated the interest of Muslims. When I ensured appointment of a Muslim (Javeed Ahmad) as the state Director-General of Police, Akhilesh did not talk to me for 15 days. He did not want any Muslim on this post. It sent out an anti-Muslim message,” Mulayam Singh was quoted as saying. “If it comes to Muslims’ interest, I will also fight him (Akhilesh),” says Mulayam.
Whether the three-time chief minister kept Muslims’ interests above everything else or not is a highly debatable point. Uttar Pradesh is home to the largest Muslim population in India. Regrettably the poorest Muslims in the country are also residing in the state, putting a question mark on Mulayam’s claim. Nearly 15mn of the 40mn Muslims in the state live below poverty line (spending power of Rs32 per day per person) while the wealth of Mulayam Singh Yadav and his family has hit stratospheric heights over the past couple of decades.
The elder Yadav is convinced that it is his cousin Ram Gopal who is influencing Akhilesh against him and his supporters. So, even if parental love were to eventually forgive Akhilesh for his ‘trespasses’, it may take a much bigger heart for Mulayam to pardon Ram Gopal who will have to also content with the enmity of Mulayam’s brother Shivpal and their old associate Amar Singh, known for straddling more than one stool. (Some in Delhi even believe that BJP chief Amit Shah had set Amar Singh among the Yadavs to muddy the waters for the SP ahead of what is believed to be the most important state assembly elections in the run-up to the 2019 parliamentary polls.)
Akhilesh is young and so are the majority of voters in his state. The last two years of his chief ministership had witnessed a massive infusion of state funds into infrastructural projects, be it roads, metro rail, power, education. There is much going for him at the moment but Mulayam can easily spoil his chances and that would be to the benefit of the BJP.
If the feud is real, and not one stage-managed by Mulayam to help Akhilesh retain power, then it is going to be an uphill task for both the father and the son. Mulayam will have to fight the elections on a new symbol and in a state that is largely illiterate, this is easier said than done. Voters may not know which candidate they are voting for or her/his leadership qualities but they do know the party they are willing to bet on because it carries the symbol they can identify with.
But if Mulayam were to campaign against Akhilesh there is going to be such confusion among voters – Muslims included – that they may opt for the Bahujan Samaj Party of five-time chief minister Mayawati. A split in Muslim votes will always work to the benefit of the BJP.
This is not to say that the BJP and the BSP will have it easy. They have their own problems, the former with ticket distribution and the latter with an image issue as Mayawati is facing allegations of large-scale corruption during her previous regimes. Her brother’s wealth reportedly rose by several billion rupees in a matter of three years.
But what it all adds up to is a very interesting and hard-fought election that could eventually leave no single party in the majority and at least two of the big guns having to swallow pride and join hands to avoid President’s Rule.
Mamata may have
lost most in fight
against Modi
The opposition’s fight against Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the issue of demonetisation is dissipating fast. With assembly elections to five states less than three weeks away, political heat in Delhi seems to have taken a winter vacation.
While his rivals still gun for him and his revolutionary demonetisation idea at election rallies in the five states, the national capital is hardly witnessing any action thereof. The fact that banks and ATMs are back to near-normal in their functioning may have contributed to fewer negative headlines in the morning papers. But the politicians themselves seem to have realised that demonetisation being a fait accompli they have to look for new pastures.
Mamata Banerjee, along with Arvind Kejriwal, had been at the forefront of the fight against Modi in every which way possible. In fact, at a rally in Delhi immediately after Modi announced his demonetisation plans on November 8, both Banerjee and Kejriwal had given him just three days to withdraw the order, failing which they had threatened to unleash their full fury on the prime minister and the nation. Modi stood his ground, not even a single sentence in reaction came from him, and the two chief ministers simply swallowed their pride and went their respective ways.
Kejriwal is now busy with elections in Punjab and Goa where his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is hoping to capture power and, therefore, local issues rather than an anti-Modi campaign are his focus.
Yes, demonetisation does crop up at every rally he addresses, but even Kejriwal knows you can beat an issue up to a point but beyond that it loses its impact. Not only had there not been any riot or unrest in the name of ‘notebandi’, the vernacular for demonetisation, but common people all across the country had suffered much hardship in peace because there was a general feeling that Modi’s measure was meant to correct a historical wrong.
Kejriwal has sensed this better than Banerjee and, therefore, his attacks on Modi have been nuanced to suit the occasion. The fact that the Supreme Court has thrown out an attempt to malign Modi with corruption charges has also helped put the brakes on Kejriwal’s otherwise vitriolic fulminations against the prime minister.
But perhaps the worst sufferer is Banerjee whose fight against Modi has forced her to stoop so low that many of the otherwise neutral observers have begun to wonder if the West Bengal chief minister has stopped thinking logically. Political rallies in Delhi and Kolkata, leading the disruption of parliament, taking two delegations to President Pranab Mukherjee to seek his support to declare demonetisation illegal have all failed to bear fruit.
Though they would not say it on record, many of her MPs feel that Banerjee may be going overboard with her criticism of Modi and the unparliamentary language she uses while referring to him. They are also sceptical about the chief minister trying to protect her millionaire nephew Abhishek Banerjee who reportedly leads a very ostentatious life in poverty-stricken West Bengal.
The MPs’ ambivalence was amply clear at a sit-in protest against demonetisation in the national capital last week. There are 45 Trinamool Congress MPs in both houses of parliament combined but barely two dozen took part in the protest, that too several of them drifting away after making brief speeches that nobody seemed to listen apart from a few journos from Bengali papers. The protest, in fact, was wrapped up well before time.
