The Story of the Rise and Fall of the Congress Party in Uttar Pradesh
By Engineer Shyam Sundar Poddar, MBA
In the 1984 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress party secured 48% of the votes in Uttar Pradesh and won all the seats.
V. P. Singh, a minister in Rajiv Gandhi’s government, resigned from his ministerial position and launched the Bofors movement against Rajiv Gandhi. He also raised the slogan that, after 1,000 years since Prithviraj Chauhan, an opportunity had finally arrived for a Rajput to become the ruler of Delhi. He succeeded in his political strategy.
He took 15% of the Congress vote with him to the Janata Dal and became the ruler of Delhi.
After Mulayam Singh Yadav ordered the firing on Hindus, he began playing his Mandal Commission card. Mulayam Singh’s decision to open fire on Ram devotees was an act of extreme communal appeasement, according to the author. Salman Khurshid proudly claims that when the BJP withdrew its support from the Mulayam Singh government, he ensured that the Congress extended its support to it.
The Muslim community helped save Mulayam Singh’s government. After running the government, Mulayam Singh went to the electorate, hoping to win with Muslim support. However, the Muslim community stood with V. P. Singh’s Janata Dal. In that election, Mulayam Singh received only about 10% of the Yadav community’s support, according to the author.
The BJP had a vote share of 6% in Uttar Pradesh. Following Mulayam Singh’s decision to order firing on Hindus, the Congress’s traditional Brahmin and Bania voters, accounting for 15.2% of the vote, became disillusioned with the party and shifted to the BJP.
With the implementation of the Mandal Commission recommendations, V. P. Singh’s 15% Rajput vote base shifted to the BJP, and the BJP came to power in Uttar Pradesh with a 36% vote share.
The Hindu community did not react favourably to the demolition of the Babri Masjid. Leaders such as Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L. K. Advani had thought that they would win 80% of the seats, but they fell short of securing power.
Mulayam Singh also formed an alliance with Kanshi Ram. However, a majority remained far out of reach.
In the name of secularism, Mulayam Singh governed with the support of the Congress. Yet, unlike Lalu Prasad Yadav, he did not express gratitude to the Congress. The Congress had helped him prevent the BJP from coming to power.
In public, he claimed that the Congress had allowed the Babri Masjid to be demolished. He did not give Kanshi Ram even a single penny, yet he arranged for newspaper reports claiming that Kanshi Ram was busy collecting nine lakh rupees from him every week.
Similarly, when Akhilesh Yadav’s father commits the heinous crime of attempting to take Mayawati’s life, it is treated as though it were nothing extraordinary.
Akhilesh Yadav never even stepped out of his house to campaign against the BJP. Priyanka Gandhi, however, came out and fought on the streets despite being a woman. Priyanka Gandhi did the work, but Akhilesh took the credit.
He personally handled the seat-sharing arrangement. He allotted 17 seats to the Congress, seats on which it was likely to lose, while keeping 63 seats for his own party. The Congress’s seat tally fell, while the Samajwadi Party’s tally rose from 5 to 37 seats.
Like Lalu Prasad Yadav, Akhilesh has been accused by the author of presiding over a criminal style of governance. The author questions whether the BJP will ever allow Akhilesh’s government to return to power in Uttar Pradesh.
During P. V. Narasimha Rao’s tenure, Mayawati took away all the Scheduled Caste seats that the Congress had traditionally held in Uttar Pradesh. The Congress’s vote share fell from 20% to 10%, while Mayawati’s political strength grew. In this way, Mayawati brought the Congress party to the brink of extinction in Uttar Pradesh.