Amid BJP-SP clash, BSP and RLD face moment of truth

BJP waded into the SP-BSP bipolarity in UP in 2017, riding on the polarising edge of new PM Narendra Modi, overwhelming the electorate to the point that it threatened to become a battle of survival for the OBC and Dalit outfits.

The two defeated parties came together after decades of mutual hostility to join hands for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and still could not deliver, rendering their crisis existential. The 2022 assembly polls outcome, where BJP is seeking a repeat mandate in the name of a Hindutva plus development model, and of course Modi, would fashion the sprawling heartland state, politically and socially, for many years to come. Needless to add, it would decide the political viability of SP and BSP.

The run-up to 2022 has been bewildering given how BSP chief Mayawati has virtually withdrawn from the political cauldron, amid a growing impression that the polls may end up becoming a head-on clash between BJP and Akhilesh Yadav-led SP.


The electoral outcome would depend on whether anti-incumbency and non-Yadav OBCs will resist the Hindutva-social engineering of BJP, to dent the saffron base that stood solid in 2014, 2017 and 2019 tests.

Even in defeat, SP would be in a better placed if it manages to emerge a second to BJP with a wide gulf with other runners up — BSP and Congress.

In contrast, it is a tougher battle for the once imperious Dalit czarina. Badly mauled in 2017 assembly polls, and politically passive since the advent of Modi, BSP faces its moment of truth now. Into this mix comes RLD of late Ajit Singh, that is now run by an ambitious scion Jayant Chaudhary. Part of the opposition alliance with SP, Chaudhary faces the tough task of emerging a strong anti-BJP option in RLD’s erstwhile stronghold of western UP.