Releasing the BJP list of candidates for the ensuing polls, general secretary Pramod Mahajan reiterated that the party was fighting the elections in UP under Kalyan Singh's leadership. He repeated the theme again at the end of the briefing by saying that one of BJP's election slogans would be Goonda raj vs Kalyan raj.
Pramod Mahajan's emphasis on Kalyan Singh's primacy comes in the wake of a bitter controversy in UP BJP over projecting Kalyan Singh as future Chief Minister and the latter's demand for 70 per cent representation for the backwards and dalits while nominating candidates. Kalyan Singh had made the demand at the BJP's Bhopal conclave. Soon after, the BJP leadership had said that barring Atal Behari Vajpayee, the party had not projected any one as future leader of the House.
The BJP list of about 390 candidates out of 425 released yesterday shows that the Kalyan Singh line of fighting Kanshi Ram's dalitism and Mulayam Singh Yadav's backwardism through BJP's own social engineering had been rejected by the party. After several days of labour, the BJP leadership seems to have maintained the same kind of caste balance this time as well.
This itself marks a clever political compromise and organisational balancing act by rejecting the demands of the upper castes to have their own man as Chief Minister and spurning Kalyan Singh's demand for majority representation for dalits and backwards. Even a couple of days back, central leaders like Sunder Singh Bhandari have been saying that the chief ministership would remain open.
Kalyan Singh's demand for primacy for backwards had created a new tension within the UP unit with the upper castes putting pressure on the leadership against jeopardising their traditional role. This had also resulted in the state unit president Kalraj Mishra, a brahmin, being projected as one of the candidates for chief ministership. The central leadership has now sought to maintain the traditional status quo.
A look at the UP list of candidates show that even where candidates had been changed, the caste balance has been more or less maintained. While the BJP will have to field dalit and tribal candidates in all the 90 odd reserved constituencies, the backwards share in the UP list would be about one-thirds of the total. There are three Muslims and about 22 women candidates. In answer to a question, Pramod Mahajan said that the BJP could not follow its own demand for 30 per cent representation to women due to practical factors.
The BJP would have to take into account several other factors while choosing candidates. However, when the relevant act came into force, it would be happy to follow the 30 per cent norm. He said BJP would keep apart a few seats for the Samata Party of George Fernandes if the ongoing negotiations succeed. He claimed that there would not be any fallout of the Ajit Singh's alliance with the UF on BJP.
After the release of the list, there were murmurings among UP leaders about some nominations. Resentment is also brewing on the way nominations have been given to those suggested by the four organising secretaries. The impact of the heartburn will be known in the next two days.
