LUCKNOW: With the first phase of elections, in which eight seats of western UP go to the hustings, just a week away, the saffron juggernaut is rolling on vigorously, but the silence in the opposition camp is difficult to ignore.  

The 26 seats of western UP will go to the polls in the first three phases – April 11, April 18 and April 23. While the BJP blitzkrieg is evident with its star campaigners including PM Narendra Modi, BJP chief Amit Shah and UP CM Yogi Adityanath thronging the Jat-Muslim belt with repeated rallies, the other major political stakeholder – the grand alliance – is conspicuously silent.  

In fact, the alliance comprising the SP, BSP and RLD will hold its first mega rally only at Deoband in Saharanpur on April 7, just a day before the poll campaign ends for phase one.

However, the Congress too is yet to be seen on the ground. Though the party’s eastern UP in charge Priyanka Gandhi is touring constituencies of her domain, her western UP counterpart Jyotiraditya Scindia is yet to make any movement. Even Congress chief Rahul Gandhi has not looked towards western UP.

“The strategy of both the alliance and Congress seems to be different,” says senior political analyst JP Shukla. “SP-BSP-RLD won’t indulge in campaign much as they are depending on caste arithmetic to a large extent. The alliance believes that they have a committed silent vote bank which doesn’t need to be convinced. On the contrary, the Congress seems to be a bit hesitant,” he adds. 

The genesis of Congress’ hesitation lies in its failure to join the grand alliance in the state. “The Congress has fielded candidates in UP to keep the party alive in the political theatre. However, in the current scenario, it doesn’t seem to be in a position to spring any big surprise in UP. So they are going slow,” maintains JP Shukla.

On the contrary, dalit ideologue and political observer SR Darapuri has a different reason to offer. He believes that though the top leadership of both parties have come together to stitch up an alliance, contradictions exist on the ground. “There is literally no coordination among the cadre of SP and BJP at the ground level because of their decades-long bitterness,” he says.

Discussing the dichotomy of the alliance, Darapuri claims: “The SP supporters, mainly the OBCs who have become well-off in the recent past, find it against their prestige to sit and work with BSP’s Dalit cadre. Even the BSP cadre fails to gel with Yadavs as it sees them as the perpetrators of all atrocities on Dalits during SP regime. Both are not comfortable with each other at the ground level and lack coordination and zeal.”

However, the Samajwadi Party has altogether a different reason to explain the silence on the ground. “The alliance leaders do not want to give any communal traction to the BJP to polarise the political arena of western UP,” says a senior SP leader seeking anonymity.

“Akhilesh and Mayawati are keeping away from high decibel rallies repeating their strategy adopted in Kairana bypoll,” adds the SP leader. The alliance is focusing more on the door-to-door campaign by the foot soldiers of both parties. “The intention is to avoid the elections from becoming Hindu vs Muslim,” says the SP leader.

A huge rally of the alliance leaders would have drawn minorities in droves to the venue and may polarise voters in the region like in 2014, which could work to the benefit of the BJP.