BSP, the hitch in SP, Congress seat-sharing talks

Uttar Pradesh’s main opposition Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Congress have been in talks even as they have begun separate mobilisation campaigns ahead of the 2024 national polls in India’s most populous state, which sends 80 of 543 lawmakers to Parliament.

State Congress chief Ajay Rai covered 16 Lok Sabha seats across 11 districts during his 18-day Uttar Pradesh Jodo Yatra. Akhilesh Yadav, the SP chief, has been holding rallies and announcing candidates citing demands from workers.

The SP-Congress seat-sharing talks are expected to eventually conclude positively even as both parties may drive a hard bargain over some Lok Sabha seats. The two parties allied for the 2017 assembly elections but their leaders campaigned separately. The alliance remained merely on the paper as the BJP stormed back to power.

The Congress believes the situation has changed and that minorities were particularly looking at it as a national force that can defeat the BJP. But the Congress has little bargaining power. It got just 2.33% votes in the 2022 assembly polls while the SP polled 32.06% and Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) 2.85%.

There may be trouble if the Congress insists on including SP’s arch-rival, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), in the fold. The prospects of Congress going with the BSP without SP appear minimal.

The BSP’s support base has significantly eroded since Mayawati became the Uttar Pradesh chief minister for the fourth time with a full majority in 2007. It could win just one seat in the 403-member Uttar Pradesh assembly in 2022. The BSP contested the 2019 national polls in alliance with SP and improved its tall from zero to 10 seats. It ended the alliance blaming SP for the poll debacle as the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) returned to power.

The BJP swept the national polls in Uttar Pradesh for a second time by winning 62 seats in the state five years back.

Uttar Pradesh remains crucial to both the BJP’s hope of retaining power and the Opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA)’s attempt to prevent that.

The Congress’s unilateral announcement for Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, which will cover states including Uttar Pradesh, has further dampened the spirit of Opposition unity when experts say the INDIA bloc should have hit the campaign trail and come up with their vision document.

Congress allies believe a collective show of strength during the yatra, at public rallies and one-on-one contests against the BJP to check the split in votes remained imperative to the bloc’s prospects.

The BJP strengthened its position in the state by becoming the first party to return to power in Uttar Pradesh in 37 years. It won 255 in a 403-member House while SP managed to get 111 seats, and Congress two. Congress, SP, and RLD collectively managed just 38% vote share in the 2019 polls compared to the BJP’s 50%.

This partly explains the Congress’s keenness to include the BSP in the INDIA bloc. The BSP has said it will contest on its own. The combined vote share of SP, Congress, BSP, and RLD was 45% in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Supporters of BSP’s inclusion cite the Muslim vote bank among the reasons for expanding the INDIA bloc. They say Muslims were likely to unite under one banner to avoid the split of votes that may help the BJP. Mayawati has often fielded strong candidates in Muslim-majority constituencies.

Others argue that a Muslim consolidation could also be counterproductive and may trigger reverse consolidation of Hindus in the BJP’s favour, especially post-Ram Temple opening.

The campaign for the temple construction in place of the demolished Babri Masjid was key to the BJP’s rise to power from a party with two seats in the 1980s.

Mayawati’s inclusion against this backdrop is seen to be key to attracting BSP’s core Dalit supporters. Dalits have long been seen as averse to the SP. Mayawati referred to the “anti-Dalit moves” of the previous SP government when she ended their alliance post-2019 polls.

The 12% vote share BSP managed in the 2022 assembly elections is also seen as transferable. The combined Opposition is also expected to attract some upper-caste support. Brahmin support helped Mayawati form a majority government in 2007 despite provocative anti-upper caste slogans of the BSP in the early 1990s. Dalit-Muslim-Brahmin was key to the Congress’s electoral successes until the 1990s.

The SP is unlikely to accept the BSP’s inclusion based on the failure of their 2019 alliance. The two parties have renewed their attacks on each other and even cited the 1995 attack of SP workers on Mayawati. The two parties seemed to have buried the hatchet in 2019 when SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati even shared a stage.

Akhilesh Yadav has cited credibility issues as Mayawati has ended and formed alliances for power. Some feel she could be arm twisted and prevented from joining the INDIA bloc as corruption cases remain pending against Mayawati and her family.

The SP is a key member of the INDIA bloc. Constituents such as Mamata Bannerjee’s Trinamool Congress could be averse to including BSP at the expense of the SP.