Lucknow: As elections in Uttar Pradesh heads to Bundelkhand and districts of Raebareli, Pratapgarh and Allahabad, it's a different story for the Congress’s alliance with Samajwadi party. Unlike the previous phases, it will now be on the Congress to save grace for the ambitious alliance.
Can the alliance continue its dominance in the region where BSP is a strong player and BJP has emerged as a formidable contender on almost every seat going to polls on February 23rd? A lot depends on the Congress.
Getting such a sizable chunk of seats, the strategy is clear that in the region, especially Bundelkhand, Akhilesh Yadav's hopes of retaining the Chief Minister post depends a lot on Congress's performance.
Apart from Raebareli from where Congress president Sonia Gandhi is an MP, the party has big leaders like Pramod Tiwari in Pratapgarh, Anugrah Narayan Singh in Allahabad, Vivek Singh and former Union minister Pradeep Aditya Jain in Bundelkhand.
In 2012, despite odds Congress won six seats in the region and had got a respectable vote share on quite a few other seats, one more than the BJP, which could just win 5 seats.
Though SP had won 24 seats in the region in 2012, in Bundelkhand, comprising districts of Hamirpur, Mahoba, Jhansi, Chitrakoot, Lalitpur and Jalaun, it was given a tough fight by the BSP. Here, BSP had won seven out 19 seats here while SP had won another seven. Congress had got 4 while BJP had to content with just 1 seat.
The Congress has been given a high numbers of seats to contest here this time around. A senior Congress leader said, “The natural anti-incumbency against The SP, can well be overcome by yielding bigger space to the Congress, more so when it has a respectable base in the region.”
He further added, “The confidence party has in itself can also be judged by the fact that it did not bow down to SP on 5 seats including Unchahar and Sairini, In Raebareli and three other seats of Mehroni, Bindki and Soraon.”
Political observers feel that BJP and BSP have both realised the potential of the alliance in this phase. This is the reason both Prime Minster Narendra Modi and BSP chief Mayawati have been attacking each other strongly on the campaign trail in Bundelkhand.
Modi described BSP as 'Behanji Sampatti party', Mayawati hit back by calling him a 'Negative Dalit Man'. The strategy of the BJP is thus to ensure shift of Non-BJP votes towards BSP, thereby ensuring division of votes.
The SP-Congress alliance prospects in the region has also been strengthened by tactical support coming in from Independent MLA from Kunda, Raghu Raj Pratap Singh Raja Bhaiya. A close ally of the Samajwadi party, Raja Bhaiya holds a considerable clout on atleast three seats of Pratapgarh and in certain pockets of Allahabad.
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