Articles by A K Verma

By staying away from the municipal elections in Uttar Pradesh in October-November, Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party has played a rather clever move. The BSP also encouraged its supporters to vote for the Congress or BJP candidates (depending on who seemed the better one in a particular area) in a bid to teach the ruling Samajwadi Party a lesson. This might seem to be a self-defeating move but the BSP is conserving its punches for the forthcoming assembly elections.

Previous exercises on the delimitation of Lok Sabha and assembly constituencies have been largely fair and satisfactory. However, the current delimitation exercise, under the auspices of the Fourth Delimitation Commission, involves several methodological issues that need to be resolved in a bipartisan, non-contentious manner, in keeping with the necessary constitutional specifications.

The several political parties espousing the cause of the backwards in UP have played a part in reconfiguring the political agenda in the country and providing a platform for transformative politics. But on important issues, the performance of the backward movement in the state has been less than satisfactory. It has failed to address the issue of 'backward identity' and has been unable to develop a class politics.

The election has shown that politics in UP will now unfold through competition among two state-level and two national-level parties. The study shows that all parties are finding it difficult to overcome the community barriers to their respective support bases. However, the significant factor that has emerged is the possibility of the SP and BSP crossing this social threshold and becoming more inclusive parties. For the Congress and the BJP, already on the brink of marginalisation, this would throw up major challenges.

In the triangular and quadrangular electoral contests expected in the state, the current dark horses, the BSP and a rejuvenated Congress, could cut away substantial vote shares of the bigger parties, the BJP and the SP.