Only seven months are left for the announcement of the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh along with four other states Punjab, Goa, Uttarakhand and Manipur. UP is most important as the assembly is the largest in the country with 403 seats while the seats for the Lok Sabha are fixed at 80. The Lok Sabha elections are due in April/May 2024 and in all probability, the outcome of the assembly poll will have big influence on the campaign for the Lok Sabha poll in the state.

Prime Minister knows the probable full impact of the UP assembly poll results on 2024 general elections and that is why he has taken complete charge of the UP strategy for the coming assembly polls. PM and Amit Shah are working in tandem with PM playing a bigger role while in 2017 assembly elections, it was all a show of Amit Shah and he excelled in that. But this time, after the disastrous defeat at the hands of Mamata Banerjee in Bengal, Narendra Modi has taken over the job of the prime strategist for the UP polls as he has a feeling that Shah’s strategy failed in Bengal and the BJP cannot afford another failure in a state like Uttar Pradesh.

As of now, countless meetings have been held at the highest level of the government, both at the Centre and in the state to do a makeover of the Yogi government. The tussle which was there earlier between Yogi and the PM has been temporarily taken care of and the PM is bent on spending lot of time in the coming months before poll to continue finetuning the poll strategy in consultations with his advisers to extract maximum results from the poll. Like Bengal, no holds are barred in this battle against the Samajwadi Party led opposition alliance but there is one advantage that in fight against Mamata, PM-Shah could use only central agencies, but for UP polls, with Yogi as Chief Minister, the state agencies are also available to harass the opposition leaders before the poll. That way, it will be a twin attacks against the opposition in Uttar Pradesh by the agencies of both Centre and the state.

Narendra Modi and the Sangh Parivar are battle ready for the polls in Uttar Pradesh. They have lot of weapons in their armoury and they will use these in the campaign, when needed. As against this, what is the state of preparedness of the opposition? That is pathetic. The main party Samajwadi Party led by former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has still not reached a position where they can challenge the BJP on an equal footing in the 2022 elections. Yes, seven months are still left and many developments may take place in the intervening period. But knowing Modi-Shah, one may say that they are preparing to leave the worst period of governance in UP behind and working for corrective actions to brighten the image of the Yogi government and the ruling BJP before the polls.

The core issue is how far the opposition parties Samajwadi Party, the Congress and the other smaller parties have campaigned enough to take advantage of the governance failure and sought to emerge as an alternative. The SP despite its huge organizational base covering all districts, has not yet been able to generate that type of anti incumbency feeling which is needed to translate into anger against the BJP regime in the polls. As the ground reports tell us, there is seething anger against the Yogi government for so many issues including the gross management of pandemic, but this did not get the due outlet due to lacko trust in opposition.

Congress has started some noises against Yogi Government but its impact is so limited that the state BJP cares little for it. The state party with Priyanka Gandhi Vadra in charge, is holding some workers meetings but there is no adequate response to the moves. The Congress grassroot workers were initially enthused when Priyanka took charge, but with the passing of days, things have not improve. The Congress organization is in a mess. It needs thorough revamp and the cadres have to be thrown into door to door campaigning as big rallies are not possible due to pandemic..

Indications suggest that the SP will form an alliance with RLD and other smaller parties to face the BJP. An alliance with the Congress and the BSP has been ruled out. The SP is now a bit shaky due to the results of the just concluded district and panchayat samitis polls. The BJP certainly did unethical practices, but these things happen in UP elections. Since SP could not check this, meant that organisationally, the SP could not mobilise its strong people. The BJP will be using these tactics in assembly elections and for that the SP has to be organisationally prepared.

SP, on its own, will do its own bit. It is expected that SP will try to expand its alliance base before the elections. But SP is not fighting its own battle for assembly, it is fighting for the future of opposition politics in the coming three years before the 2024 Lok Sabha poll. This fight against the BJP in 2022 polls should be converted into a fight of the entire opposition against the BJP.

Lalu Yadav is out now. He knows the state. That way, RJD leaders, DMK leader M K Stalin, NCP leader Sharad Pawar and principally Mamata of Trinamool Congress have to come out solidly in favour of Akhilesh in his fight against BJP. If possible, Mamata should see that her strategist Prashant Kishor helps Akhilesh in framing the winning strategy. Time is running out. The opposition has to unite behind Akhilesh to ensure that Yogi Government is ousted in 2022 polls. It is possible but it needs hard work by SP and solid support by other anti-BJP parties. (IPA Service)