UP Elections 2017: To welcome or not? Congress, SP workers debate awkward alliance

As night falls in the vast sprawl of towns and villages that constitute western Uttar Pradesh, Congress workers can be seen vigorously scrubbing graffiti from the walls. Braving the cold and the fog, their comrades hold up torches and gas lanterns so that the slogans highlighting the failures of the Samajwadi Party (SP) are hastily rubbed off before dawn.

It’s a scene that can be seen in the villages of Barwale, Mohalpura and Tigri in Muzaffarnagar district and Umanda in Bijnor district. With polls set for February 11 and 15 in the region, it’s not just Congress workers but also those in the SP who find themselves in somewhat of a spot – warily welcoming the alliance between the two parties while embarrassedly erasing signs of their political enmity of just a few days ago.
 
Though the Congress-SP alliance has given a psychological boost to their leaders in New Delhi and Lucknow to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), their workers on the ground are struggling to paper over the hostility. 

Taking a queue from the results of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, where voters backed development, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi and his team decided to take on the BJP, BSP and SP for misrule, law and order issues as well as lack of development in the state.
 
So, walls all over the state were painted with slogans like  “27 Saal UP Behaal (27 years, UP in ruins)”, highlighting the miseries people had undergone since the Congress was thrown out of power in Lucknow. In fact, on January 17, the day Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad was announcing the alliance in Delhi, party workers in the region were busy distributing booklets criticising Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav of the SP.
 
In the evening,  Congress leaders in Deoband and Saharanpur had to summon all their workers to ensure that the booklets, prepared to coincide with Rahul’s 2,500 km Kisan Yatra, were dumped.

Worker speak

In Saharanpur, Congress workers still believe that an alliance with the BSP would have been more challenging for the BJP. Some leaders confess that they did try, but BSP supremo Mayawati didn’t oblige. “We then went ahead, declared our candidate for chief minister and also fielded a robust team to battle on the ground,” said a party district president on the condition of anonymity.

Sanjay Singh, who heads the Congress’ poll campaign committee in UP, admits that the booklet and Rahul’s yatra were meant to address the failure of successive governments. Now, he musters all the sophistry at his command to absolve Akhilesh and make a distinction between him and his  father, SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Following Rahul Gandhi’s directions, a  team of senior leaders   was rushed to Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, Deoband, Saharanpur and other districts going to the polls in the first two phases. Local leaders say they were briefed that the Congress should not shy away from campaigning against the "goondas" in the SP but stress that those elements are with Mulayam Singh.
 
Despite this message, confusion is rampant in both parties.  The alliance has left many of those hoping for tickets after having worked in the constituencies for five years high and dry.

Congress worker Rampal Singh, for instance, was supposed to contest from Charthwal. “Even if they had to sew up an alliance, they should have done so a year ago,” he told DNA. “A year ago Rahul, invited us to his home in Delhi to tell us to vigorously campaign against the SP. Just few months ago, we were told to go around in localities to apprise people about the misrule of the Akhilesh government. With what face shall I now tell people to vote for the SP?” he asked.
 
SP ticket seeker Yashpal from Saharanpur, who has been on the forefront to challenge Imran Masood and his family, contesting on the Congress ticket, says he faces a similar dilemma. He had for the past two decades been reminding people about the 1987 Hashimpora and Maliana riots and attacking Congress for the demolition of Babri Masjid. “People ask me questions on my switch over. But I have no answers,” he said, adding that his politics was based on anti-Congress positions.

Some euphoria too

But there is jubilation in Congress’ Muslim cadres. Etrat Hussain Babar from Sambal says he doesn’t regret losing out to the SP candidate. “We will fight together to form an alliance. At least, we now have a chance to be in the government after 27 years. It was not possible for us to won elections alone,” he said.
 
Chaudhry Shamim Ahmed, who was  seeking a ticket from Amroha, said the tie-up was necessary to keep the  BJP out. “I am ready to sacrifice. The alliance will move us closer to power in Lucknow after 27 years, as happened in Bihar. It is a sign of our revival. We can be part of development.”
 
Mohammad Tanzeem, Deoband city president of SP, agreed. The Congress was may have lost prowess, he said, but did have a few votes in every constituency to influence the result. “Now they will add to the fortunes of the SP,” he said.