Demonetisation, despair leave UP polls colourless

Lucknow: Elections in Uttar Pradesh are all set to be a colourless and dreary affair, mainly due to demonetisation and “despair” in all major political parties for various reasons.

“Demonetisation is going to hit us hard. We do not have enough cash in hand for the campaign and the Election Commission guidelines to make payments above Rs 20,000 through cheque will make it difficult for us to pay for our workers’ needs, as we usually give them cash and they eat wherever convenient,” said a BSP candidate from Kanpur.

A Congress leader said that the party and its candidates are facing cash crunch, which is adversely impacting the campaign.

Apart from the demonetisation factor, there is despair in almost all parties, though for different reasons.

The Samajwadi factions that are battling for supremacy are now in a fix over the party symbol. Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, who convened a meeting of his legislators and candidates on Thursday morning, made it clear that there was no room left for any reconciliation and they would have to go it alone. He said that his faction was confident of getting the cycle symbol and the odds were in their favour.

The mood of SP MLAs after the meeting, however, was somber. “Unless the symbol issue is addressed, there is no point in starting the campaign. What do we tell the voters? I feel we have made a mistake in splitting on the eve of the elections — we should have taken this step earlier so that the symbol issue could have been solved earlier. We have frittered away our advantages,” said an SP MLA from Ambedkar Nagar.

The mood in the BJP is also not as upbeat as expected. Party MLAs feel the BJP high command is being kept in the dark and the demonetisation impact is greater at the ground. “The traders, middle classes and women, which has been our traditional voter base, are the worst affected. Communal polarisation in western UP has also been diluted to a great extent. Besides, the absence of a chief ministerial candidate is emerging as a disadvantage because all other parties are banking on the ‘personality cult’,” said a BJP MLA from eastern UP.

The BSP is confident of getting Muslim support, but its candidates are not enthused.

“Muslim support is still undecided but we have lost out on upper caste votes to a sizeable extent after the Daya Shankar episode, in which our party leaders target the female members of the family. It will be difficult for us to get our own communities to vote for us,” said a Thakur BSP candidate. The Congress, which had made a fantastic start in August with a series of road shows and yatras, has slowed down its campaign. Party leaders and workers are confused about alliance talks, and statements issued by its  leaders from time to time are only compounding the confusion.

The party will need Herculean efforts to turn the election into a four-cornered contest and position itself as a secular alternative.