Battle for Uttar Pradesh: Mulayam Singh Yadav and Narendra Modi wooing voters ahead of Lok Sabha polls

LUCKNOW: The real battle for the heartland began with the biggest players targeting each other in UP that accounts for 80 Parliament seats. SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav on Sunday attempted to polarise the polity, painting a grim picture of the future under BJP’s Narendra Modi, while the latter mocked Mulayam’s efforts to woo Muslims by demonising him.

The traditional secular-communal fault lines of a BJP-SP frontal fight emerged sharply with the SP leader donning his “Maulana Mulayam” cap at an SP rally in Allahabad, referring to mass murders during 2002 Gujarat riots. Though the presence of the Ram temple champions Kalyan Singh, Uma Bharti and MM Joshi on the dais was a throwback to the highpoint of the BJP’s surge in the nineties, Modi kept to his developmental script.

Modi’s rally was a clear attempt to stop Mulayam from polarising the Muslim electorate into voting against BJP en bloc. Modi said despite SP claiming to be working for the Muslims, they were most prosperous in Gujarat. He said in just the last year, there were 150 riots in UP, whereas there was not a single riot in Gujarat in the last 10 years.

“They (SP and Congress) start talking of secularism whenever an important issue related to the people is raised. You talk of poverty and they will say, first talk of secularism.
You raise issues of education, they talk about secularism. Bring up corruption and they want to talk of secularism,” Modi said.

He deftly wove in the OBC politics into his speech by referring to his own backward caste status. With the Yadav community still firmly supporting the SP, Modi attempted to woo the non-Yadav OBCs when he said, “Electricity is supplied to the Yadav’s constituencies but other areas remain in dark.”

Modi picked on the speech of Mulayam who addressed a rally in Allahabad an hour before him. While Mulayam tried to blow holes in Modi’s previous speeches, Modi took cues from Mulayam’s speech to attack SP. Modi said there was a wave building up for the BJP. “And this wave by the time elections come will turn into a tsunami. It will wipe away SP, BSP and Congress,” he said.