This Article is From Mar 07, 2012

How UP election result can change political equations at Centre

New Delhi: The Congress' lukewarm performance in Uttar Pradesh has shaken up the party by proving that Rahul Gandhi was not able to win over voters who were desperately seeking change. They ignored the Congress and opted instead for the Samajwadi Party. The change of guard in Lucknow is being felt already in Delhi.

BJP leader Sushma Swaraj told NDTV that she believes mid-term elections are likely for the country. The general elections are scheduled for 2014, but Ms Swaraj says the seat count shows a weakened Congress incapable of serving any longer as the pivot for the UPA coalition at the Centre. She also pointed to how the clear mandate for the Samajwadi Party could reshape the alliance. Samajwadi chief Mulayam Singh Yadav can form the government on his own in UP and doesn't need an alliance with the Congress as a Plan B. That gives him huge leverage at the Centre, where his party lends support to the UPA on important votes in Parliament. The recent friction within the UPA was also highlighted by Ms Swaraj. She pointed to a series of outbursts against the Centre from Mamata Banerjee, who is the largest party in the UPA after the Congress. The BJP, she said, reads into this signs of an early election. She said that though her party will not steer events towards a mid-term poll, she believes the BJP is ready for a general election.

The Congress lost heavy bids for power in UP and Punjab, where it had assumed a long tradition of anti-incumbency would bring it to office. Instead, the state has, for the first time, re-elected the party in power, the Shiromani Akali Dal. The electoral failures come at a time when the Congress has been enervated by a series of corruption scandals. A good performance could have helped revive its credibility as well as its authority in an increasingly fragile coalition. Lately, the Congress has been slammed for its policy paralysis. In the Rajya Sabha or upper house, it is in a minority. 58 seats will fall vacant in April; ten belong to UP. A strong showing by the Congress could have helped it push its overall tally up in the Rajya Sabha, where it is dependent on allies like Ms Banerjee to help pass crucial legislation.

Instead, an increasingly defiant Ms Banerjee has blocked reform in retail which marked an initiative by the Prime Minister. Last month, Ms Banerjee led a campaign to block the Centre's proposal for the new National Counter Terrorism Centre or NCTC. She sided openly with nine other chief ministers who head non-Congress governments in their states. They allege that the NCTC's mandate violated the principles of federalism by stomping upon the rights of states to handle law and order. Ms Banerjee's show of fraternity with chief ministers like Odisha's Naveen Patnaik has provoked speculation about plans for a Third Front which would combine parties like Ms Banerjee's and Mr Patnaik's with Chandrababu Naidu's TDP in Andhra Pradesh.

About her own party's performance in UP - it has made no real gains - Ms Swaraj said the BJP will spend the next few days assessing what went wrong. Reasons being cited for the BJP's poor show range from the absence of star campaigner Narendra Modi to the projection of an outsider, Uma Bharati, as the face of the party. Ms Bharati has, in the past, served as the chief minister of her home state, Madhya Pradesh.


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