AS THE ELECTORAL wheels get rolling in Uttar Pradesh, the future contours of Indian politics are getting marked out. It isn’t as much the final outcome of this round of Assembly elections as the trends the ensuing polls would set off that would determine the way the Indian politics would go in the coming decades. For, Uttar Pradesh is a microcosmic India where conflicting and diverse political forces are at play. The pro-minority, the pro-Mandir, the anti-Manuvadi, the modern and the progressive elements are all battling to secure their political space — not only for now, but many years ahead. This core state has the mix to define the political future of the country.

 

Knowing well how the future depends on today, the prime power aspirants are slugging it out to keep in strength the forces they represent. Mayawati is screaming hoarse, holding out her old Dalit card, albeit with the political sagacity of getting the Brahmins, too, into the Bahujan fold. Mulayam Singh is pedaling hard his bicycle to retain the support of the Muslims, Yadavs and the Thakurs, who in the past mainly tilted the balance of power in his favour. Bharatiya Janata Party warhorses Kalyan Singh and Rajnath Singh are harping as usual on the Mandir to consolidate and garner the non-Muslim votes. Chrismatic Congress youngster Rahul Gandhi is politely negating the past Congress blunder of presiding over the Babri’s demolition to regain the Muslim confidence and stage a comeback in the state that has written off and nearly forgotten the Congress.

 

Post-elections, it is what happens to the forces underpinned by the leading political leaders that will shape the future of Indian politics, more than a party’s and a person’s victory. Will Manuvad, Mandirvad and Muslimvad side-sweep rational, progressive and secular upholders or vice versa? The drift from this round of Assembly elections will firm up the way the nation would traverse in the times to come. This is what makes this UP Assembly elections far more significant than any other state polls held in the past.

 

At the decisive center is the Congress, the only other national party besides the BJP. Much is at stake for the party being steered in the state by its future prospect Rahul Gandhi. Knowing fully well the odds, the Congress is treading with caution in the vastly changed scenario since the days of Indira and Rajiv. In a style reminiscent of his father, dimple-cheeked Rahul is trying hard to undo the electoral damage his father caused to the party by getting unlocked the Babri gates. He has been making carefully doctored statements in his vastly attended roadshows to regain the lost Congress grounds. And, going by the huge crowd response, he appears to be making the mark. But, as early poll surveys confirm, he is still far from making an electoral reversal or a history.

 

The fact that Congress itself isn’t fancying great gains in this election is self-evident from the party’s think tanks’ reluctance to clearly spell out its chief ministerial candidate, unlike the other parties in the poll ring. It knows the risks associated with projecting Rahul Gandhi as a chief ministerial candidate and the impact it would have nationally on the party in the event of an electoral washout. It is therefore content to leave to him at the steers and not distract him from his untiring efforts to consolidate lost votes, particularly of the youths. And, in this Rahul has succeeded a fair degree with as much as 61 per cent youths siding with him in a pre-poll survey vis-à-vis fellow America-educated rivals Ajit Singh’s son Jayant Singh and Mulayam Singh Yadav’s son Akhilesh Yadav. This is a significant figure since it foreshadows the future, which is in the hands of the youths. It shows the state’s younger generation is moved more by what a person represents than the poll-contrived caste and religion-based issues.    

 

So, don’t prejudge when the final poll results are out. The loser of this election may overturn completely the outcomes in the next, and the next. Wait to see how UP shapes its own and the nation’s future. It will.