In a move that has apparently upset BSP chief and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati’s electoral plans, the Election Commission on Saturday announced seven-phase Assembly polls for the state from February 4 to 28.
Assembly elections in Punjab, Uttarakhand, Manipur and Goa will be held in a single phase. Punjab and Uttarakhand will go to polls on January 30. In Manipur elections will be held on January 28 and in Goa on March 3.
If the timing makes the situation somewhat tougher for the BSP supremo, the elections are crucial for the Congress with AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi leading the charge.
The party’s alliance with the Ajit Singh-led RLD is expected to work to its advantage in Jat-dominated western UP. Mr. Singh was recently inducted as Union civil aviation minister.
The Samajwadi Party, with Mr. Akhilesh Yadav leading the outfit, will try to reclaim the state. The BJP has, however, fallen back on the image of former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to stay in the fight.
Sources disclosed that the BSP chief, with a strength of 219 MLAs in the Assembly, wanted the elections in April; this could have given her time to complete pending projects and clean up the party’s image.
Also, being winter, her strategists expect a major turnout from the upper caste vote bank which they feel might benefit the Congress and BJP. While the BSP leads in a House of 403, the SP has 87 MLAs, the Congress 16, BJP 48 and RLD 10. Also, the Congress-led UPA’s move to play the quota card in the Lokpal issue seems to have shifted the electoral debate in UP from corruption to reservation.
The move could help the Congress dig into the MY (Muslim-Yadav) combination, the SP’s main vote bank. Congress strategists feel this could also hurt the BSP’s Muslim vote bank. Earlier, to woo the OBCs, the Congress had given a Cabinet berth to Kurmi leader Beni Prasad Verma.