Dadri to Mathura: Road to 2017 UP elections paved with violence
Elections to the Uttar Pradesh Assembly are still nine months away, but the political temperature in the state is already on the rise, and many fear it could only get worse leading up to the polls.
Yesterday's mindless violence in Mathura was preceded by attempts to reignite the Dadri beef issue, and both topics, though unrelated, point to a not so subtle attempt to keep UP on the boil as it heads into the election season.
The stakes in UP have always been high for all the parties concerned. With 80 MPs, it has the largest representation in the Lok Sabha, and plays a critical role in determining who comes to power in Delhi.
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| Scenes of ravages after Mathura was engulfed in a violent face-off between the police and Gurudev supporters. |
Its politics has mostly bordered on the volatile, with divisive issues like religion and caste dominating the political discourse. The Ram Mandir movement emanated from the state, and in addition to Bihar, the fall out of the Mandal agitation was felt the most in UP.
The last Lok Sabha elections were preceded by an unimaginably vicious round of communal bloodletting in Muzaffarnagar, which saw the BJP romp home with 71 of the 80 seats in the lower house from the crucial state.
It's essential for the Narendra Modi-led BJP government in the centre to build on its performance of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections where it won 71 of the 80 parliamentary seats on offer, and capture power in Lucknow.
Defeat in a state that sends the largest number of MPs to the lower house could pose a serious setback to the BJP's hopes of coming to power in 2019. On the other hand, a defeat for the SP would mean not just loss of power but it would also seriously limit its role in any future anti-BJP grouping at the centre.
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| It's a bumpy ride ahead for the poll-bound Uttar Pradesh. |
For the BSP, it needs to win not just to come to power but also to stay relevant. Yet another defeat after its dismal performance in the last Lok Sabha elections, where it failed to win a single seat, might see parties such as the BJP and the Congress encroach on its Dalit vote bank.
Even the Congress' ardent supporters do not expect the party to win back power in a state where it has been reduced to a peripheral role for the last 27 years. However, the party is making an audacious pitch, even contemplating introducing Priyanka Gandhi into the fray in a desperate attempt to salvage lost ground in a state that was its pocket borough till 1989.
Ominously, for the state, incidents like Dadri and Mathura or attempts to ratchet up the communal temperature by raking up issues like ghar wapsi and love jihad could well be the precursor of things to come.
Political parties may make all the right noises on maintaining peace and refraining from raising divisive issues, but given the history of recent elections, it will be a welcome surprise if they stay true to their word.