THE EMERGING SHAPE OF AN OPPOSITION ALLIANCE

Om Prakash Rajbhar, chief of the Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP), a regional outfit in Uttar Pradesh with four seats in the 403-member state assembly, tweeted a photograph on October 20 of his meeting with Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav.

- Ashish Misra

The image was captioned ‘Abki baar, BJP saaf (This time the BJP will be routed)’. Rajbhar had just days ago held inconclusive seat-sharing talks with the BJP, a former ally. Speculation on which way he would go was put to rest on October 27 when Akhilesh turned up as chief guest at the SBSP foundation day rally in Mau district. “The red cap of the SP and yellow cap of the SBSP are now one,” he said. Poking the BJP, he added: “If the West Bengal election was ‘khela hobe’, then the people of Purvanchal will do a ‘khadera hobe (drive out the BJP)’.”

With three months to go, the picture of how the rivals may line up for the UP electoral contest is becoming clearer. Political analysts say the battle may boil down to the ruling BJP versus the SP, backed by a morcha of small but influential regional parties. A key constituent of this SP-led alliance will be the SBSP, whose standing among the Rajbhars and equivalent castes can swing the outcome in 153 assembly seats, particularly in close contests.

The Rajbhar community has a sizeable presence in the 24 districts of Purvanchal and Awadh, their numbers ranging from 20,000 to 90,000 in these seats. “The SBSP holds sway not only over Rajbhar society but also several backward castes, such as Bansi, Arkavanshi, Bind, Prajapati, Pal and Vishwakarma. If Akhilesh Yadav can add in their support to his Muslim-Yadav base, the SP-SBSP alliance can challenge the BJP in Purvanchal,” says Shashikant Pandey, head of the political science department at Lucknow’s Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University.