The repeat of the success of Mahagathbandhan in Uttar Pradesh is improbable, rooted as it is in the contrasting personalities of the chief political protagonists as well as the divergence of interests of their rival social support base.

Already the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has squashed any nascent hope that Akhilesh Yadav and the Samajwadi Party may have harboured of combating his anti-incumbency with clever social engineering. After Akhilesh Yadav made a pitch for a possible “Mahagathbandhan” in UP, which was understood to be an Olive Branch offering to its nearest rival, the BSP clarified that it will “go alone” in the 2017 assembly elections. It has ruled out any truck not just with the SP but also with the Congress and any other party.

There are the commonly understood factors for this outright rejection. First is the deep antagonism between Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati owing to an incident dating back to June, 1995 when the BSP chief was held hostage by SP musclemen in a guest house. This was just a day after the BSP severed its alliance with SP, a coalition that defeated the resurgent BJP at the peak of the Ramjanmabhoomi movement with the famous slogan “Mile Mulayam-Kanshi Ram, Hawa me ud gaye Jai Shri Ram (Kanshi Ram and Mulayam’s alliance has wiped out Jai Shri Ram)”.

Maywati went on to form a government with the BJP’s support but the alliance did not last, owing to the BJP’s scorn for their ally’s Dalit-oriented policies. The BJP-BSP government fell in December, 1995, lasting barely six months. In the 1996 Lok Sabha elections, efforts to bring together the SP and the BSP failed, leading to the BJP gaining 52 seats and 33.43 per cent of the votes. The BSP’s vote share too increased – from 11 per cent in 1993 assembly elections to 20.60 per cent. It tied up with the Congress in the 1996 assembly elections, which benefitted the national party more than it did the BSP. Of the 296 seats the BSP contested, it managed to win 67 with a vote share of 19.64 per cent. Congress won 33 of the 126 it contested, benefitting due to vote transfer from the BSP.

As it was a hung house and a variety of negotiations took place, the BSP once again ended up with the BJP, forming a government with power-sharing agreement on March 21, 1997. Clashes ensued with the BJP engineering a split in the BSP on October 21 with a group of MLAs forming the Janatantrik BSP which extended support to the BJP government. In the subsequent 1998 parliamentary elections, the BSP refused to align with any party. And the trend has continued by and large uninterrupted with the BSP shunning overtures from the Congress, the Left and the Rashtriya Lok Dal.

However, the most significant factor that prohibits any alliance between SP and BSP, which is also a point of distinction between the politics of UP and neighbouring Bihar, is the different social support base of the two parties, agrarian relations and the history of animosity between the two.

In Bihar, for instance, the landowning elite is still more or less upper caste in nature and known to share a history of violence, especially with the lower OBCs and Dalits. The formation the “Lal Fauj (Red Army)” of the radical left groups comprising mostly landless agriculture labour and its rival Ranabir Sena, which was mostly an army of upper caste militia, marked the distinct caste divide in Bihar. Hence, the caste base of Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad Yadav – the Kurmis and the Yadavs – have by and large fraternal ties with Dalits and EBCs.

In contrast, it is the middle peasantry – the Yadavs, Jats, Gujjars, Kurmis and Lodhs – are seen to be in direct conflict with the landless, the Dalits and the lower OBCs. The Jat-Jatav conflict in western UP and the Yadav-Jatav conflict in central UP is a routine occurrence. The abolition of zamidari in UP has given rise to the upwardly mobile middle peasantry which is seen as an oppressor by the Dalits. The Upper Caste are not in routine conflict with the Dalits and hence Mayawati’s rainbow coalition with the Brahmins worked to her advantage in the 2007 elections where she secured a majority in the UP assembly. “Chad gundan ki chhati par, Brahmin baitha haathi par (On the chest of the goons, the Brahmin has climbed the elephant i.e. BSP’s election symbol)”, was the most popular slogan from the 2007 elections.

The rise of two strong leaders – Mulayam from the middle peasantry and Mayawati from among the Dalits – only helps to widen this social gap. So, their differences are not just rooted in what is called the “Guest House Kaand (scandal)” but a reflection of their rival support base. That is the prime reason for a Grand Alliance being a non-starter in Bihar’s neighbouring state.

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