The Hindu : Marriage of inconvenience

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jun 08, 2003

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Marriage of inconvenience

Though the BJP and the BSP have vowed to continue their unnatural alliance in U.P., their ideological conflict does not allow them to be at ease with each other. J.P. Shukla writes.

UTTAR PRADESH entered an era of political stagnation on June 2,1995, when the relationship between the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) reached a breaking point, resulting in the fall of the Mulayam Singh Yadav Government. Subsequent Assembly elections saw the decline of the Bharatiya Janata Party and growth of the SP and the BSP, but that did not end the instability. The parties now form the three sides of the State's political triangle and the combined strength of any two remains greater than that of the third.

By political logic, the SP and the BSP should have been natural allies as both claim to serve the cause of the lower strata of Hindu society and the minorities. Both have opposed the communal agenda of the Sangh Parivar, especially over the construction of Ram temple. An understanding between the two parties, however, has become an impossibility with the BSP leader and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Mayawati, refusing to "forgive'' Mr. Yadav for the 1995 attack on her person, allegedly by his party activists.

There is, therefore, only one viable political equation for the present — that of an unnatural alliance between the BJP and the BSP, despite their obvious ideological conflict which does not allow them to remain at ease in each other's company. Their mutual mistrust resulted in their parting of ways twice earlier. Formed again for the third time, the BJP-BSP coalition has been facing problems, notwithstanding the fact that the two parties this time round have vowed to continue the arrangement at least till the next Lok Sabha elections.

In the BJP-BSP "marriage of convenience", no rule of public morality or democratic conventions was sacrosanct. Horse-trading emerged as an accepted practice, offers of ministerial positions came in handy to lure any MLA prepared to defect, and the Opposition was ruthlessly split to swell the ranks of the coalition. The SP emerged as the largest group in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly with 142 MLAs in 2002. But it failed to form a Government as the combined strength of the BJP and the BSP was enough to keep it out of power. The SP had hoped to enlist the support of the Congress but the latter refused to oblige.

More recently, however, the Congress made an ambiguous move to join hands with the SP, following the Rashtriya Lok Dal's withdrawal of support to the Mayawati Government. But the Opposition was not sure of the numbers in the Assembly or the leader who could replace Ms. Mayawati. Apparently, the leaders are thinking of replicating the BJP-BSP modus operandi — engineering defections in the ranks of the coalition.

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