No matter how hard Samajwadi Party leaders try, there is no wishing away Amit Shah from UP politics. For, like his guru Narendra Modi, Shah might not be a household name, but every politically inclined person has heard of him over the last couple of months, primarily for being Modi’s chosen leader for fashioning a strategy to end BJP’s electoral drought in UP.
Under normal circumstances, Shah would have been a nobody in UP, which has no dearth of strongmen. But the timing of his entry could not have been any better for him and more worrisome for the Samjawadi Partythat governs the state. Shah is finding a ready audience in UP because of Netaji’s perceived large-heartedness for militant Muslims. While financial support and education on religious lines would have still gone down as political moves, attempts to free 400 youth allegedly involved in various blasts and pampering leaders like Shahi Imam Bukhari, Azam Khan and lesser known community leaders who kick up controversies regularly, is working to Shah’s advantage.
Facilitating an easy entry for Shah are the 27 communal flare-ups that occurred in the last couple of years, as also smaller, unreported communal killings that were hushed up like the one in Tanda, Ambedkarnagar. These have raised the communal temperature in different pockets of the state.
It is not without a reason that former UP Congress chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi said, “The coming of Amit Shah to Uttar Pradesh has brought with it the communal wave. We will have to keep a close watch on his activities. His entry in Uttar Pradesh is not good for the state.” Her fears are not unfounded. While Azam Khan may be with Akhilesh Yadav at all his meetings for a particular reason, the buzz around Kalyan Singh’s return to prominence in UP is also seen to be for communal polarisation. It is just a matter of time before fiery speeches of Vinay Katiyar, Yogi Adityanath and Varun Gandhi return to UP.
The clergy-turned-politicians of seminaries like Darul Uloom Deoband, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind and the All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat are set to raise tensions too. The communalcasteist politics of UP too is set to flourish in the run up to the 2014 elections, unless some game-changer is propped by parties who seem to be on the sidelines at the moment. BJP will leave no stone unturned to repeat the Mandir wave of 1998, when it won 57 LS seats in the state while Mulayam is also banking on polarisation to extend his assembly win to parliamentary polls.
Besides communal angle, SP’s dismal performance on economic front may also work to the advantage of Team Modi that has delivered in Gujarat. On matters of caste, Modi’s ongoing Sardar Patel act has not gone unnoticed in Uttar Pradesh and might just work to his advantage. Not long ago, some influential Kurmi community leaders decided to use a common surname Patel instead of Verma, Katiyar, Gangawar and other second names, showing caste is still very important. These are small issues that might just work alongside the communal and development agenda and allow Shah to lay “the foundation of Lok Sabha election win from UP”.
Gujarat Vidhansabha 