Looking through UP
The next Lok Sabha election could happen as early as September, if Mulayam Singh Yadav is to be believed. His eager anticipation of the event isn’t exactly news. Every party is loudly preparing for the fray, and the date could well be advanced. Netaji’s words are a rallying cry to the Samajwadi Party cadre, a promise of good things to come. Yet, this overwhelming imperative of getting him to the prime minister’s office may well be taking a toll: it has become one of the reasons to keep the SP distracted and ineffective in power in Uttar Pradesh.
In April 2012, the Samajwadi Party won the state by a majority, only the second time in nearly two decades that a single party has formed the government in UP. It was a composite mandate — the party had drawn voters from every caste and religious group in UP’s famously fragmented political terrain. Great hopes rested on the new government, therefore, which was headed by a young and sincere-seeming Akhilesh Yadav. This was billed to be UP’s shot at a turnaround, much like neighbouring Bihar’s near-transformation in recent years under the stewardship of Nitish Kumar.
By all accounts, that opportunity is being steadily squandered. This is in part because the SP’s attention is trained on Delhi, and partly because it is slipping back to the bad old ways, with out-of-control party workers interfering, unchecked, in police and administration. Rather than strengthening economic fundamentals, the state government spends its resources on freebie schemes designed to
