Broad anti-BJP alliance for UP polls unlikely

In the 2015 Bihar Assembly polls, an alliance between the JD (U), RJD and Congress was successful in stopping the BJP-led NDA

BJP President Amit Shah with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. (Photo: PTI)

The chance of a Bihar-type pre-poll alliance to keep the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) out of power in Uttar Pradesh, where legislative Assembly polls are due early next year, appears dim.

In the 2015 Bihar Assembly polls, an alliance between the Janata Dal-U, Rashtriya Janata Dal and Congress was successful in stopping the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. 

Prashant Kishor, appointed an advisor to the JD-U’s Nitish Kumar after the latter became the Bihar chief minister for a third term, had been hired by Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi to devise a strategy in UP.

Over recent weeks, Kishor held separate meetings with the ruling Samajwadi Party’s supremo, Mulayam Singh Yadav, and his son, UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav. After which, the SP chief declared his party would have no truck with anyone.

“Netaji has set the record straight. We will go to the polls on our own. We will have no alliance with anyone. If someone wants to merge their party with the SP, they are welcome,” Naresh Aggarwal, the party’s Rajya Sabha member, told this newspaper.

Without taking names, Ghulam Nabi Azad, the Congress general secretary in charge of UP affairs, hit back by saying an ocean never merged with a river or a drain.

In reality, though, the Congress is fourth among the major political players in UP — after the SP, Bahujan Samaj Party and BJP. In the earlier Assembly poll, it got no more than 28 of the 403 seats.

Sources in the JD-U said they were still hopeful of a pact with the Congress and Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD). However, the JD-U has negligible presence in UP, while the RLD influence is limited to the state’s western parts.

Kishor’s meetings with the SP leaders had riled the state Congress leaders who are dead against any truck with the SP, which has grown over the past two decades at its expense. 

Till a few weeks earlier, Congress managers were watching the Yadav family feud in UP with keen interest. And, had even said Rahul might like to go along with Akhilesh if the latter parted ways from his father, Mulayam Singh.