Uttar Pradesh

The new face of

A new political landscape

UP Election post-mortem: Why they won, why they lost Why Akhilesh, Badal, Parikkar won: They had a credible message BJPs shrinking poll results flash danger signal for party Uttar Pradesh drubbing puts Rahuls Congress in dire straits SPs victory: 2007 redux and the unanswered questions

Akilesh in the spotlight

Dear Rahul, meet your worst nightmare: Akhilesh Yadav Delhi has suddenly discovered me: Akhilesh Yadav Akhilesh thanks UP, promises development, law and order Dear Akhilesh, your law and order problem begins now Mayas statues, elephants will not be pulled down: Akhilesh

Is it over for the 'crown prince'?

The Dynasty is over; Go on Rahul, get a Real Life UP Results: Will Cong now dump Rahul as showpiece campaigner? Educating Rahul Gandhi: 5 lessons from the UP debacle

A new political landscape

UP Election post-mortem:
Why they won, why they lost

What lies behind the Samajwadi partys victory? How did the Congress goof up in Punjab and Goa? How did BJP slip by a bit in Uttarakhand?
R Jagannathan, Mar 6, 2012

ith the benefit of hindsight, the full story of 2012s mini general elections can be told.

First, Uttar Pradesh. The clean sweep by the Samajwadi Party (SP) appears to have resulted from two causes: an anti-Mayawati consolidation where voters who may have been marginally favourable to Congress and BJP shifted their votes to the SP to enable a change in the government; and the SPs ability to project a new look through the campaigning of Akhilesh Yadav. The second factor cannot be underrated. Between Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav, the former came across as just an angry young scion, while the latter came across as a mature young man with this own agenda for change and development. Akhilesh was the man who enabled UPs electorate to forget the Samajwadi Partys previous stint of goonda raj. What is equally clear is that Mayawati is by no means a spent force. The early indications of voteshare show SP at 29-30 percent, with BSP just 3 percentage points behind. She has every reason to bounce back the next time, but a lot depends on how the SP runs Uttar Pradesh in the meantime, and how Mayawati plays her cards in the coming months and years. The two national parties fared disastrously but with vote shares of around 15-16 percent each, they need not always be bit players. What they clearly need to do is create pre-poll alignments with the major parties. This works if they are happy playing second fiddle in the state in return for a higher seat arrangement in the Lok Sabha polls. If they want to go it alone, the national parties cannot hope to do so with zero local leadership. A Rahul Gandhi or a Uma Bharati parachuting from Madhya Pradesh at the last minute cannot be the formula for success. Even a few months ahead of polls is not good enough. Moreover, UP managed to vote across caste and religious lines though the Muslim vote probably proved decisive in swinging the election fully SPs way. But Dalits did not all vote for Mayawati, and the upper castes did not all vote Congress of BJP. The OBCs went many ways.

Class is beginning to matter as much as caste in UP politics. Second, Punjab. The Congress was possibly overconfident about its win. It assumed wrongly that anti-incumbency will always work. It also hoped that the Peoples Party of Punjab (PPP), launched by Manpreet Badal, will dent the Akalis enough to deny them victory. However, it is now clear from the vote-count that in many constituencies, the Akali-BJP margin of victory was less than 1,000-2,000 votes. The Congress should either have aligned with the PPP or worked harder in marginal constituencies to make the vote share bring in additional seats. If they had done so, the results would have been much closer. But then, the Congress has won on its own in the past. This may not happen again. The next time, if it wants to defeat the Akali-BJP combine, it should think alignments.

The Akali-BJP team, as long as it delivers on development, is Punjabs natural party of governance as it combines the dominant Jat Sikh and urban Hindu votes to make for a winning combination. The Congress needs to create its own formidable vote combinations to break through this alliance. A clear takeout is the overwhelming strength of the Badals. The father-and-son duo, complemented by fiery bahu Harsimrat, were able to cash in on their developmental work and their own personal image. Capt Amrinder Singh, despite being a strong opponent, did not have that little extra, having spent most of the last five years doing things other than politics in this state.

Sukhbirs succession as Chief Minister is thus a foregone conclusion once his father decides to retire. Third, Goa. After Uttar Pradesh, this is the clearest verdict and the BJP clearly carried the day, riding both the anti-incumbency and anticorruption waves in a state marred by various mining scams. In Manohar Parikkar, the BJP had a modern faced leader (IIT, etc) with a clean image. The BJP also made special efforts to woo the Goan Catholic vote by putting up many Catholic candidates. The strategy worked, and Parikkar is home and dry with his own majority. The BJPs Goa victory could show a party how to recover from a sectarian past.

Fourth, Uttarakhand. The BJP surely did the right thing by bringing back BC Khanduri as Chief Minister of Uttarakhand last year. He arrested the partys negative image, but thanks to some local skullduggery, lost his own seat, even while taking his party close to victory. Last, Manipur. The Congress romped home on the Tina factor There is no Alternative to the Congress in this suffering state, with the rival formations too divided to mount a challenge. The bottomline: there is no common thread running between the state election results. Each was different in its own way. National parties can win only if they have local leadership or align with regional parties.

Why Akhilesh, Badal, Parikkar won:

They had a credible message

What separated the winning parties from the losers was that they were led by leaders who could connect with the electorate with a credible message.
Jai Mrug, Mar 7, 2012

he results of the assembly elections in Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Goa, Manipur and Uttarakhand have, more than any other election in the recent past, emphasised the need for earthy leaders who not only connect to the masses but also have content a clear message that is perceived to be backed by conviction. Such leaders have the ability to cut across caste/ community lines and appeal to voters on key deliverables of governance rather than an exclusive and often negative appeal to identity. The victory of Akhilesh Yadav offers insights into what could be working the psyche of the masses. In 2011, a survey in Uttar Pradesh asked voters whether they preferred leaders who could govern or those with whom they had a jati/biradari relationship. Seventy percent of the respondents preferred a politician who could deliver public goods and govern, and only 20 percent said they would like someone from their jati/biradari as a political leader. There were no statistically significant differences in the responses between Hindus, Muslims, Dalits, upper castes, and other backward classes (OBCs) (Read the article by Vasundhara Sirnate and Pradeep Chhibber here). The results from Uttar Pradesh amply demonstrate the same. Though the Samajwadi Party polled a little over 29 percent of the vote, the support came from across the spectrum, which helped it win the largest number of seats any single party has won since 1985. The wins were spread all across the state , unlike in the past when the partys performance would be skewed across various regions of the state. At 224, it went marginally ahead of the BJPs tally of 221 seats in 1991. While the party has put a stupendous performance in Eastern UP and Central UP, it has not performed poorly in Western UP either where it has won 43 percent of the 136 seats at stake there. Strong leaders with a rooted base and backed by conviction can only be engendered in a federal democracy within a party that nourishes them and believes in delegation and decentralisation.

The BJP amply demonstrated the same in Goa where it gave Manohar Parrikar a completely free hand. A leadership that could connect with the masses and appeared to be backed by conviction achieved the incredible: a simple majority for the BJP, which it incidentally has never won in the Goa assembly. Some seven Catholic MLAs were elected on BJP tickets, something unthinkable in the past. While the BJP did talk about poor Christian representation in government jobs, one of the key promises the party actually made in its manifesto was a purely material deliverable reducing the price of petrol by Rs 10. In UP, however, the party could not seize the initiative, having drafted Uma Bharati at the last minute and having messed up its brand image with the Kushwaha episode.

In Uttarkhand, the partys intervention seems to have come a little too late. The BJP led in 20 out of the 70 assembly segments in Uttarakhand in the 2009 parliamentary elections. The advent of Brand Khanduri which was again about content and conviction besides connect, helped the BJP salvage the situation in Uttarkhand in what appears to be a narrower contest than ever before (the estimated vote share difference between the Congress and the BJP is 0.7 percent). The Congress surged ahead of the BJP by one seat, and left the latter with the humiliating wound of a defeated CM. If infighting in the party had been better managed, perhaps it would have romped home in Uttarakhand. The Congress did find it difficult to match the content of Brand Khanduri, but just about managed to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat in the

state. Punjab has for the first time bucked the antiincumbency trend to re-elect the Akali-BJP combine. The combine is ahead of the Congress by 1.7 percent of the vote. In many ways this was the result of the transformation of the Akali Dal with a vision that looked far beyond issues of identity and the agrarian economy into modernity. This led to the party putting up a creditable performance in regions such as Doaba and Majha, regions that have a substantial non-agrarian population in their urban and semi-urban centres, and where the Akalis were traditionally seen to be weaker. In these areas, the combine won 31 out of the 48 seats. In the traditional

Akali agrarian stronghold of Malwa, where the Congress had performed better than the Akalis in 2007, the latter matched the performance of the Congress. As far as connect to the earth was concerned, Capt Amarinder Singh, with all the trappings of aristocracy, seemed to have connected less with the masses than the Akalis. At a aggregate level, it appears that the electorate no longer looks up to a Bhadralok-like leader but to someone who has an earthy connect and whos message they can have faith in. That explains, in one line, the election results of 6 March 2012.

BJPs shrinking poll results

flash danger signal for party

The partys vote share has dipped three percent in UP; in Punjab it has lost five seats.
Akshaya Mishra, Mar 7, 2012

he Uttar Pradesh assembly poll result should give the BJP reason to worry. The Congress has failed in the popularity test but it has not come out with flying colours either. The predicament of both the national parties is similar. Both have virtually been marginalised in the countrys biggest state, both have serious problems at the organisation level, both lack good leadership in the state and neither has an answer to overcome these weaknesses. The party aimed at 90-100 seats but finished with 47. This is four seats down from its 2007 tally of 51. Worse, it lost three percent of its vote share it has come down to 15 percent from 18 percent. With UPs politics getting polarised between the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party, the BJP might find it difficult to create space for itself as the third alternative. To compound its woes, none of the other parties in the state is willing to align with it. This was the best chance for the BJP to revive itself in UP, the state it has ruled earlier and where it has some core voters, an advantage not enjoyed by the Congress. It also has some local leaders of stature and the extended Sangh Parivar network to fall back upon. Mayawati had enough chinks in her armour which the party could have exploited. Party president Nitin Gadkari displayed enough ability to experiment with innovative strategies. The results, however, were disappointing to say the least. Nitin Gadkari The reasons are not difficult to find. Interestingly, many of these are common to both the Congress and the BJP. It had no regional leader who could be the face of the partys campaign. State biggies like Rajnath Singh, a former BJP president, and Kalraj Mishra are way too limited in their appeal across the state. Thus Gadkari had to import Uma Bharti from Madhya Pradesh. This did not go well with either the states leaders or the local cadre. For sometime, Gadkari has been consciously trying to shed the communal image of the party and provide it a progressive outlook. He has shifted his focus to the development plank instead of harping on polarisng issues such as Ram Mandir and Hindu identity, both of which have become electorally unproductive. Howev-

er, to sell the idea of development you need an organisational network that is tuned to the idea. However, most of the Sangh Parivar outfits are grooved in the idea of Hindutva. It is difficult to send across a new idea to people using these as conduits. Gadkari would have discovered this practical problem at some point. The Congress aggressively played the communal card, announcing sub-quotas for Muslims within the OBC category. The SP followed it with a bigger reservation promise. In normal conditions, such promises cause some polarisation of Hindu votes, which works in favour of the BJP. It did not happen this time. The UP voter seems to have stopped thinking on communal lines.

The BJP, like the Congress, sought to play the caste card hard for the first time. When it invited Uma Bharti she belongs to the Lodh community to the state, the game plan was to target the backward vote. The induction of BSP discard Babu Singh Khushwaha and others, and the emphasis on the rights of the OBCs during campaigning were part of a larger strategy. However, it failed to deliver. Only a few of the partys 126 OBC candidates have won. Gadkaris plan was not unsound given the history of caste equations in UP but in a situation where there is a wave in favour of one political party, many strategies are bound to fail. The BJP ran a lacklustre campaign. Its senior state leaders were too busy settling turf issues, nursing ego issues and promoting their kin to take real interest in the partys campaign. Uma Bhartis arrival on the scene and the importance accorded to her irked these leaders no end. Bharti, who was supposed to lead the campaign,

had to be pushed out of the campaign mainstream to Bundelkhand where she stayed busy contesting a seat. None of the star central campaigners of the party was conspicuous by their presence in UP. The likes of LK Advani, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley were hardly in the show that was run almost entirely by Gadkari. Theres reason to believe he was not getting full support from party veterans. Also, he did not bother to invite Narendra Modi to UP. It is possible Gadkari is

creating his own power formation within the BJP. The party lacked the energy and enthusiasm one usually expects in the BJP. Now that it has suffered, the party must sort out intra-party issues. It has not done too well in other states either. It has lost five seats in Punjab and drawn level with the Congress in Uttarakhand. Goa is the only saving grace but it is too small a presence in the electoral map of the country.

Uttar Pradesh drubbing puts

Rahuls Congress in dire straits

The UP elections may be viewed upon as the fall of Rahul Gandhi. But what is also worrying is the inactivity of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Anil Dharker, Mar 6, 2012

here are several ways of looking at the election results (and it goes without saying that TV channels with their blanket coverage and their exhaustedand exhausting panels have looked at every which possibility). You could call it the fall of Rahul Gandhi. Especially in UP where he invested so much time and energy, the returns have been dismal, though in absolute terms, the Congress has done better than in the last elections. Even in Punjab where he confidently anointed Amarinder Singh as the next chief minister of the state, the Congress has been mauled badly enough to necessitate deep introspection. Another way of looking at the UP election is to say that the Congress, and especially Salman Khurshid, played the minority card and the promised reservations etc to such a degree that credibility was lost. Overplaying the card could possibly have had the effect of alienating voters who do not belong to the minority. Yet another way of looking at the elections in UP, Punjab and Goa is that these states veer between the two leading parties in the state. This may not be as drastic as in Tamil Nadu where DMK and AIADMK ride high, then fall hard at each succeeding election; nevertheless in UP (SP and BSP), Punjab (Congress and Akali Dal) and Goa (BJP and Congress), power does seem to change hands quite often. Voters of these states may not be as volatile as those of Tamil Nadu, but once they have reached the limit of their tolerance, they kick the incumbent out, and vote the alternative in. None of these analyses cancel each other out; they can all co-exist and can all be partially true. Theres also the added complication of caste, though I have seenand seen this too often political pundits confidently assert how caste factors will affect results, only to fall flat on their faces when the actual results come out. The only fact we can be sure of is that Indias voters cannot be taken for granted; not just that, but even politicians cannot really read them.

To me there is yet another way of looking at the results, especially if you see them as a whole rather than piecemeal, state by state. Taken across the board, the one constant is that the Congress party has been rejected by the electorate, and whether Rahul Gandhi campaigned in a particular state or did not, really didnt matter too much. Why should that surprise us? Right across the nation, disillusionment with the government at the centre is widespread and complete, even amongst diehard supporters of the Congress party. The disillusionment is so strong that even its committed supporters would abandon the party; if they dont, its only because the alternative is the BJP, and its therefore an option not acceptable to many. I know I am taking the strong feelings against the government in Delhi, and transferring them to the states which went to the polls. But is that such a far-fetched possibility? Apart from local factors which might have influenced voters choices in each state, it is quite likely that the general feeling of drift also preyed on the voters mind. We cannot be certain of any of this. But what we can be certain of is that these election results can have a disastrous effect on governance. Already the UPA government is crippled by its unpredictable allies (DMK, TMC and NCP). The Congress poor showing is only going to bolster the trouble-making abilities of the Mamtas and Karunanidhis. They will now feel emboldened to make further demands for many pounds of flesh; stall legislation which may be good for the nation but might be unpopular in the shortterm with the electorate. Manmohan Singh and his team can react in one of two ways. Sit and watch helplessly as they have been doing till now. Or realise that its now or never, and get galvanised into action. The prospects dont look good because the word Action seems to be not in Singhs dictionary.

SPs victory: 2007 redux and the unanswered questions

It is more a vote against Mayawati than for Mulayam. But the landslide victory is puzzling.
Akshaya Mishra, Mar 6, 2012

t is 2007 redux.

Mulayam Singh Yadav, the then chief minister, was up against an anti-incumbency wave. Goons had broken loose in Uttar Pradesh and the law and order situation was precarious. His chief lieutenant Amar Singh had veered off the partys socialist moorings to turn it into a rich mans club. Film stars, industrialist and power brokers of different hues gave the party an image that was hardly in sync with its rural voters base. The Yadavs cornered all the benefits and the cases of caste atrocities were dangerously up. There was rampant corruption too. People were frustrated and angry. The run-up to the polls that year showed no big wave for any party. But the results were astounding. The voters in UP had voted overwhelmingly against the SP, and Mayawatis BSP was the beneficiary. Cut to 2012. The popular perception had turned sharply against Mayawati. She was guilty of the same crimes as Mulayam of 2007, only worse in degrees in certain areas. Most pollsters missed the wave against the BSP. In hindsight, it was too big a wave to be missed. But blame it on the UP voter; he is good at hedging his bet. So how do you decipher the UP vote? The SPs victory is no surprise, its landslide victory is. The anti-incumbency mood was palpable in the run-up to the election. The anti-BSP votes were expected to go to the only other strong political alternative in the state: the SP. The Congress and the BJP are too weak to present themselves as reliable alternatives. Moreover, the UP voter seems to be fed up with the idea of hung houses prior to 2007, there was a long spell of instability in UP because of fractured mandates and that is possibly one reason he makes his mandate clear. There is no easy way to explain it but it is possible that UPs politics has entered an era of stability with the emergence of two clear choices. As the seat share of the national parties suggest they have been rejected by a majority of the voters.

But that still does not explain the massive victory. As the voting pattern suggests the regional parties retain their core votes the Dalits in case of the BSP and the Yadav-Muslim combination in case of the SP. But the plus votes Mayawati secured in the last election has swung away from her. A section of her Dalit vote bank, as post-poll surveys suggest, seems to have broken away from the BSP this time as well. The vote is largely against Mayawati than for the SP. But SP benefits from being the only other option available. Yes, the party had worked hard for over two years to rebuild its image, thanks to the efforts of Akhilesh Yadav. The partys campaign was subdued but purposeful. There were no film stars in the partys campaign, no effort to overwhelm the electorate by show of money power and goondas were out of the picture. But there could be other factors that could have contributed to its big victory, mostly the tactical mistakes from rivals. The suggestion from Sriprakash Jaiswal that the state could be headed for Presidents rule in case the Congress did not get enough seats could have driven voters to the SP. The UP voter, like we mentioned earlier, is wary of the uncertainty arising out of hung houses. Again, it is possible that it benefited from the high pitched Congress campaign against corruption and misgovernance under Mayawati that in case is the Congresss claim. It had been pretty subdued in its attack on the BSP for most part of its early campaigning. The BSP took its Dalit vote bank for granted and shifted focus to the sarvajan plank. This plank which spelt success for her in 2007, was a wasted effort this time. The Brahmins and upper castes had already moved away from her. The SP made inroads into her Dalit base. It is also likely that the SP doubled its efforts to woo the Muslim vote after the Congress sought some kind of polarisation by harping on quotas and sub-quotas. However, we will get a clearer picture once the full statistics is made public. The numbers will provide us the tool to decipher SPs victory.

Akilesh in the spotlight

Akhilesh Yadav
All the political spin in the world will not save Rahul from the one great catastrophe birthed by the UP elections: the rise of Akhilesh Yadav. He is Rahuls doppelganger, the smarter, more articulate and talented scion who will not go away.
Lakshmi Chaudhry, Mar 6, 2012

meet your worst nightmare:

Dear Rahul,

ts not make or break for Rahul and always the credit for victory will be ascribed to him and failure will find a ready loyal scapegoat. The family charisma shall be propped up with some flimsy excuse, said Pushpesh Pant on Zee News, echoing conventional wisdom on the UP elections. Of course, hes right. The chorus of Congress spinmeisters is already in full swing, offering a variety of flimsy reasons why Rahul is a big winner in UP irrespective of pesky disappointments like vote shares or seat gains. In one of this mornings more incoherent TV moments, Abhishek Manu Singhvi told Times Now: Not even Rahul Gandhis worse enemies are calling his leadership into question. Rahul Gandhi was outstanding. He was there for 2 years. If it doesnt translate, it doesnt translate. His shoulders are broad enough. He is in it for the long haul. He wants Congress to stand on its feet. So will Rahul remain the Congress heir apparent despite the UP debacle? Yes. Will he be saved from the facing the extent of his electoral humiliation by a Samajwadi Party alliance? Most likely. But all the spin in the world will not save Rahul from the one great catastrophe birthed by the UP elections: the rise of Akhilesh Yadav. Akhilesh is Rahuls doppelganger, the smarter, more capable, articulate and talented alter ego who haunted his every move in UP. Rahuls every speech, tactic or strategy drew the inevitable and unflattering comparisons. Theres the polite version, where Rahuls appeal and interaction is deemed sophisticated, while Akhilesh is direct, personal and earthy. Then theres the less diplomatic take offered by Pant: The most impressive campaign was conducted by Akhilesh- restrained yet forceful, relying on reason rather than emotion, not abusive or abrasive. It stood out in sharp contrast with Rahul Gandhis histrionics reminiscent of B grade Hindi films. Rahul has always been the A-for-effort student, the political rookie graded on a more lenient curve. Even the more flattering reviews of his UP performance emphasised his education:

Suddenly, the Congress general secretarys rallies are no longer aloof. They have become participatory events where both the crowd and the candidates are drawn in; he has learnt how other politicians behave on the election trail. This was not so even during the initial phase of his campaign for the Uttar Pradesh elections. Then, there was little interaction with either the crowd or the party candidates on the dais His earlier speeches seemed like recitations; now they are delivered with a lot more emotion and gesticulations, a favourite move being thumping the fist in the air to emphasise a point. But all that fist-thumping may not cut it any longer. With a natural born talent sharing the national media stage, Rahul now just looks like a slow learner. In one fell swoop, Akhilesh destroyed the overused hes-just-learning defence. He is 39 years old and entered politics in 2000 a mere four years ahead of the 41-year old Rahul. Yes, UP is his backyard but it is also the traditional stronghold of the great Nehru/ Gandhi dynasty. Yes, both are young, modern and progressive, but it is Akhilesh bhaiya who single-handedly changed the image of his fathers goonda raj party. Rahuls supporters are left making excuses about the lack of ground support or weak grassroots organizing. The really bad news: Akhilesh is not intimidated by either the Gandhi name or their national clout. Nor is he weighed down by a giant chip on his shoulder about dynastic privilege. On the campaign trail, he mocked Rahul over and again but with wit and charm. When Rahul resorted to histrionics, tearing up the SP manifesto on stage, Akhilesh just laughed: Rahul seems angry. Earlier he used to get angry by folding hands, then he got angry by tearing up paper. Who knows, next time he might jump off the stage in anger. Akhilesh is the little scion who could, unlike the bada beta who has not not now, not yet, maybe never. While Gandhi haters rant about dynastic politics, Rahuls raj kunwar status has mostly worked to his benefit. Until Akhilesh came along, he was the only modern, young politician of royal political lineage to hold the national media attention. The other possible contend-

ers were either tucked safely out of sight within the Congress fold (see: Jyotiraditya Scindia); weaker aspirants to the Gandhi surname like Varun; or had little hope of taking on a national role a la Omar Abdullah. The UP elections has thrown up the first genuine rival who possesses the talent and independent base in a state like UP, no less to mount a national challenge in the long run.

Irrespective of what happens in the aftermath of the results, Akhilesh is a nightmare that will not go away not unless his party fails to deliver once in power. The more successful he is in UP, the more he will be favourably compared to Rahul. The UP elections may be over, but the battle of the scions goes on.

Delhi has suddenly discovered me:

Akhilesh Yadav

Foreign-educated, tech-savvy, down-to-earth and married to the love of his life - that and more is what makes Akhilesh Yadav what he is.
FP Politics, Mar 6, 2012

fter six months of hard work, it looks like Delhi has suddenly discovered me, says a triumphant Akhilesh Yadav according to a report in msnindia.com. The 39-year-old politician and Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadavs son, has come a long way in Uttar Pradeshs politics since he first got elected to Lok Sabha in 2000. Uttar Pradesh has changed since 2000. Aspirations have taken over affiliations, and youth has taken over the old. This change in UP is reflected in the transformation that Akhilesh Yadavs personality has seen in a span of 12 years. From initially questioning the need of computers in education to promising free laptops to students, with keypads in Urdu this is the change that Akhilesh Yadav has ensured that Samajwadi Party has gone through. Akhilesh had even commented that, There is no harm if kids learn English and computers this is the way to progress, a clear departure from the partys earlier anti-English stand. Though he ensures that he interacts with the media only in Hindi, Akhilesh has a Bachelor of Engineering (BE) degree from Sri Jayachamarajendra College of Engineering from Mysore. He also has a Masters in environmental engineering from Sydney University. He was schooled at Dholpur Military School. To all those who think Akhilesh is not a charmer like his political counterpart Rahul Gandhi, he had a love marriage. Now with results indicating that Samajwadi Party is all set to make a major comeback with

nearly over 212 seats already in its kitty, which is way ahead of the magic figure of 202, it is clear that the Akhilesh effect has worked. In an interview to CNN-IBN earlier today, Akhilesh made it clear that the victory was not just because of him but due to the efforts of all party workers. The whole party struggled for five years. We were humiliated by the BSP for the last five years. He also made it clear that he was not in the race for the post of chief minister and that it will go to Netaji his father Mulayam Singh Yadav- as he was thepopular choice of the party cadre. At the same time, he doubted whether Congress, leading the coalition at the Centre, will impose Presidents Rule in UP in the wake of a hung verdict. I doubt they will go for Presidents Rulebut if that happens, well certainly oppose it, he said. When asked about the link between SP and the goonda raj, he made it clear that their government would ensure that the law and order situation in Uttar Pradesh will not deteriorate. Law and order will be our priority, he said. When asked about the Congress and Rahul Gandhis campaign in Uttar Pradesh, he stated, that while Rahul had done some good work in UP, the party still had to account for its corrupt practices in the Centre. Since 12 September last year, Akhilesh has travelled 5,000 km in the state, including 200 km through a cycle yatra, covering 225 constituencies.

Akhilesh thanks UP, promises development, law and order

The new face of Samajwadi Party also assured that the party will implement the election manifesto in totality in the state.
FP Staff, Mar 6, 2012 n elated Akhilesh Yadav today thanked the Uttar Pradesh electorate for reposing their faith in the Samajwadi Party and promised to implement the partys manifesto in letter and spirit. I am thankful to all the people in Uttar Pradesh. Thank you for trusting us, said Akhilesh amid a maddening clicking of cameras at a packed press conference in Lucknow. Reiterating that the state would now embark on the path of development, he said, UP will move towards development now. The junior Yadav also appeared firm on maintaining a clean image for the party unlike its last stint where it was marked by unchecked hooliganism.

Whoever goes against law and order in UP will be punished. Be it my relative or a party worker. We will not tolerate corruption. Samajwadi Party is not associated with any mafia, Akhilesh said. In what can mean a little relief for outgoing chief minister and BSP supremo Mayawati, the 39-year-old Akhilesh said that the elephant statues will not be broken. The partys parliamentary board meet will be held tomorrow. SP head Mulayam Singh Yadav is set to be the next chief minister barring the formal procedures.

Dear Akhilesh,

your law and order problem

begins now

The celebration of SPs victory by firing guns has already claimed the life of one seven-year-old. Akhilesh has his work cut out for him in reining in his gun-toting supporters.
FP Staff, Mar 6, 2012

amajwadi scion Akhilesh Yadav, who successfully managed to erase the partys goodna raj image, got his first taste of the challenges ahead of when his partys wild celebrations led to the accidental death of a sevenyear-old child. The death was reported during a victory celebration of Samajwadi leader Iqbal Mehmood in Sambhal when his supporters reportedly fired gunshots. Mehmood won the assembly elections by defeating Rajesh Singhal of the Bharatiya Janata Party by 30,047 votes. Firing guns to celebrate a great victory may be the norm in many places, but the idea of politicians or their supporters running around with loaded weapons, much less actually firing them,

is never a good sign. It is bound to raise fears of the return of goonda raj in the UP. Given that SP leader Akhilesh Yadav said that law and order would be the main priority of the new government, he will have to begin the clean-up from within. And to compound this fact even further, there were reports of SP workers attacking the media in Jhansi. ANI and NDTV reported that they had cameras smashed by SP workers. Journalists are reportedly now stranded in Bundelkhand Degree (BKD) College, Jhansi, with Armed SP workers outside. Police personnel at the scene have also been attacked.

Mayas statues, elephants will not be pulled down: Akhilesh

Akhilesh had said in the midst of a poll campaign last year that there would be no sign of these statues once his party gains power.
PTI, Mar 6, 2012

ucknow: The expensive giant statues of BSP supremo Mayawati and party symbol elephant in Uttar Pradesh will remain safe with Samajwadis star campaigner Akhilesh Yadav saying today they will not be pulled down after the change of guard in the state. Yadav, who powered Samajwadis campaign to help his father and party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav to regain power, had said in the midst of a poll campaign last year that there would be no sign of these statues once his party gains power. The 39-year-old engineer-turned politician spoke about the statues and memorials of other dalit leaders facing no threat when asked by reporters whether they will be pulled down after the Samajwadi leadership remained on course to dethrone arch rival Mayawati. Akhilesh had said last year that Mayawatis statues would be pulled down after the UP polls in the same way as seen in the recent cases of dictators in foreign countries. In the recent times, uprising in some countries against dictators saw their statues being pulled downIn 2012, the day Samajwadi Party government comes to power there would be no sign of the grand statues of Mayawati, Yadav had said while he was on Samajwadi Kranti Rath

Yatra in the Bundelkhand region. He had said that the places vacant in the parks where the memorials were set up spending huge sums of money could have been used for the construction of hospitals and education institutes. After remaining draped for 52 days with cloth and tarpaulin following an order of the Election Commission, 11 statues of Mayawati and over 200 in Lucknow and Noida, a Delhi suburb, were uncovered on 4 March. The Election Commission had ordered the unveiling of these statues after completion of the last phase of polling on Saturday last. The directives came following complaints from political parties to the Election Commission that Mayawati is a living leader and the elephant is poll symbol of ruling party BSP. While the elephants were covered with plastic sheets which were tied at all ends to prevent the sheets from slipping, iron scaffoldings were put around the bigger jumbos to prevent any kind of damage to them. The exact cost of the mammoth exercise is yet to be worked out, though it is estimated that it would have cost over a crore.

Is it over for the

'crown prince'?

Go on Rahul, get a Real Life

The Dynasty is over;

The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty is on its last legs. Do Rahul and Priyanka have the wisdom to realise this and take the right message from the UP disaster?
R Jagannathan, Mar 7, 2012

he one simple takeout from the Uttar Pradesh elections is this: the dynasty is now on its last legs. It may soon be over.

proposition that ultimately all dynasties have to end can be etched in stone. There is a simple reason: despite all our beliefs in heredity and the passing down of strengths from one generation to another, the truth is success is seldom the result of heredity alone. You inherit bad qualities, too. Moreover, you need, luck, you need pluck, and a whole load of other qualities to keep succeeding. Your name may give you brand recognition, even a support system created by your dad, but ultimately success is dependent on talent in a competitive world. Your dads world is often not yours. Mulayam Singh may not have done as well without an Akhilesh, who represents the new. Of course, if you own all the gold mines in a country, generations can remain rich without being particularly good at mining, but these are natural resource exceptions as the Saudi royal family knows all too well. Take the oil wealth away, and few members of the Saudi family will look royal or particularly worthy of admiration. Take the Tatas. Ratan Tata has had to look outside the family for a successor. He could also have looked outside the Parsi community where the talent available is even greater. But Parsi sentiment where the Tatas are seen as one of them carried the day in his choice of successor: Cyrus Mistry. He might be a good choice, but I am sure Ratan Tata could have found an even better successor if he had looked outside his community. The family that runs The Hindu was, till recently, stuffed with family members in all key editorial and managerial positions. It still is. However, the newspaper is facing the heat of competition from The Times of India and has willy-nilly had to professionalise. Dynasty is pulling back in the third generation. The moral is clear: if you want institutional longevity, the family must exit. Or take the Ambanis. Dhirubhai was the genius he created the Reliance wealth machine. But already between his two sons one is doing better than the other. I have no doubt that by the time the third generation enters the picture, the two Reliance groups cannot be run like family enter-

Of course, it may be easy to make this statement after Rahul Gandhi was trounced in the UP elections including in his pocket boroughs of Rae Bareli, Amethi and Sultanpur. The statement will also be seriously contested, for the Congress party is certainly not over. And dynasties are not restricted to the Nehru-Gandhi family alone: look at the Karunanidhi, Yadav, YSR, Pawar, Badal, Patnaik, Chautala and other dynasties sprouting all over. Lets get one thing clear. We are not talking dynasties in general. Limited dynasties are in the natural order of things as the course of human civilisation shows. The history of evolution is a history of sons (and daughters) following in their parents footsteps whether it is business, profession or vocation. (As an aside, let me confess, I am a third generation journalist, and I could be the last for a while.) So, the proposition that dynasty is over is not a statement about all dynasties. Dynasties will come and go. One is, however, talking about The Dynasty the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty which is now into its fifth generation with Rahul Gandhi and Varun Gandhi and could conceivably continue into the sixth if Priyankas kids turn out to moderately interested in politics. Her six-packing, motorcyclist hubby certainly seems to think he is in with a chance in this line of business. However, the Gandhis longevity in this family business is an unnatural exception that has continued for five generations because of extraordinary events that catapulted many family members to do what they were not equipped to do. They are an aberration. The proposition that dynasty is over is not a statement about all dynasties.Reuters In business, there is a saying that the first generation creates wealth, the second one consolidates it, and the third one either destroys it or loses it by letting someone else run the show to grow it. This, of course, is not an iron rule, for family rule can continue for generations, but the

prises. In the west, this process happened naturally because the creation of joint stock companies automatically forced the controlling family to dilute its stake when seeking more capital for growth. By the third or fourth generation, the family no longer has the shareholding needed to control the company and institutional investors decide how it should be run. This has not happened in India so far because of crony capitalism: Indian businessmen have, though fair means and foul, managed to retain their stakes at high levels by diddling minority shareholders of their dues and by using benami companies to play the markets and generate wealth by insider trading and other dubious practices. But as we clean up our act, what happened in America will happen here too. Lets cut again to the Gandhi family. We are now into the fifth generation from Motilal, Jawaharlal, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, and now Rahul. In between, we sometimes get sideways moves within the same generation (Rajiv to Sonia, or Rahul to Priyanka), depending on circumstances. But does not the longevity of the Gandhi family in politics prove the three-generation rule wrong? Actually, no. If we take Nehru as the first big mover and shaker (rather than Motilal) in the family, Indira was the consolidator and Rajiv Gandhi the third generation weakling who should have presided over its decline. He actually did, but we are not willing to acknowledge it. Why did this not happen? Two cataclysmic events seemed to change the three-generation rule. The death of Sanjay Gandhi who would have been Indira Gandhis possible choice as successor brought a superincompetent politician (Rajiv) into the picture. The assassination of Indira Gandhi made his entry almost a no-brainer, since there were enough sycophants telling him this was the time to capitalise on a bereavement.

We all know Rajiv Gandhi did the same callous thing as Narendra Modi in 1984 to win a sectarian landslide in 1984 (Read this). But within three years, he was exposed as a disaster. It wasnt Bofors that was his undoing. It was the way he handled the Bofors scandal that was his undoing.

The dynasty should have ended with Rajiv, but his assassination more or less pushed Sonia Gandhi into the picture. Despite what Congress sycophants will tell you, Sonia Gandhi is an incompetent politician propped up behind four walls by sycophancy. If there were not a million self-serving bootlickers in the Congress telling her she was the only one who could save the party, she would have lived a happy, healthy domestic life. And if she had done so, we would not have a Rahul Gandhi (another incompetent politician, as the UP elections show) trying to take over the Congress after Sonia. We now have the media discussing a post-Rahul Congress, where there is a Priyanka to pick up the threads. If pretty faces made for good leaders, maybe Aishwarya Rai should enter politics. Congressmen are living in a fools paradise. In fact, they are doing themselves an injustice by giving the Dynasty so much importance when it is they who are investing the Dynasty with the aura and the authority they claim they are deriving from it. Uttar Pradesh should come as one more eyeopener to Congress sycophants that this Dynasty has far outlived its utility to the country, the party, or even to them.

Here are five reasons why: Dynasties that continue endlessly deter talent. A little dynasty may be good, but too much of it works against everyones interests. The problem in dynasties is that talent faces a glass ceiling. In short, the leadership pool is a mere puddle restricted to a few family members. As long as this puddle is healthy, the Dynasty prospers. Once we end up with a dud or two, the business suffers. In Sonia and Rahul and Priyanka we have three dud leaders. The Dynasty cannot survive their incompetence. Dynasties attract incompetents and sycophants more than talent and initiative. The coronation of Sonia as Queen of Congress did not happen because of her innate leadership talents, but because Congress is the last refuge of mediocrities and hangers-on. The competent do their own thing, and dont like to kowtow to mediocrity. But mediocrity loves Dynasty since the only qualities required to succeed are flattery and intrigue, both common enough talents available in India. When these are the qualities needed, why would the genuinely gifted those who will help the party rise to greater heights want to stay there? Can the Congress name on all-India leader who can replace a Sonia Gandhi? (Answer: there are names, but no Congressman will name them) Dynasties are feudal and retrograde. They can preserve their aura only by pretending to be omnipotent, benevolent. In the political context, they feed of the poor and gullible while pretending the feed the poor. When royalty ruled the world, the King or Queen had to show omnipotence and benevolence by an occasional show of great charity. Thus a King would gift a courier who brings in good news by handing him a gold chain and the story would be told and retold a thousand times on the grapevine to give the poor hope that they too will get their chain of gold if they get lucky. Dynasties that are on their last legs behave like feudals. This is why while a Nehru had no use for a Food Security Bill or caste and religion-based quotas, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi need them badly: it is the only way they

can retain their feudal hold. A Vajpayee is able to create real jobs (92 million between 1999 and 2004) merely by running a government, but a UPA creates all of 2 million in the next five years despite running a job-creating NREGA scheme.

Dynasties fail because they stay insulated from reality. When you are surrounded by retainers and time-servers who will only tell you want you want to hear, you cannot listen to what the UP electorate is really saying. You land up in a Dalit basti for a photo-op, mistaking it for the real thing. An Akhilesh Yadav, who is not separated from his people, is able to make development his theme-song and trundles along on his cycle for a year giving this message and receiving the peoples feedback. A Rahul Gandhi, with his Z category security and walled thinking, has to meet the people under cover of darkness, and in highly artificial circumstances. And the Rahul Gandhis have their Digvijaya Singhs promising them they have made a huge impact when they may not have generated anything more than curiosity value. Dynasts never seem to know when to quit or say no thanks. Rajiv Gandhi should have been the last Nehru-Gandhi Dynast. But Sonia Gandhi felt compelled to enter the hurlyburly of politics since she must have been told by sycophants that the party needs you. A child may need parenting, but a mature adult is quite capable of handling herself. After all, in 1991, the Congress even with its dubious selection process produced a non-charismatic, nonGandhi PM who changed the course of Indias economy destiny. Even Indira Gandhi could not do that. If Nehru and Gandhi brought India political freedom, Narasimha Rao brought India

true economic freedom. Not Sonia or Rahul. But soon after the Congress lost the 1996 elections, Sonia Gandhi did not find the courage to say, no thanks. And Rahul Gandhi, who too does not have it in him to say no, is soldiering on in a profession he does not quite relish. The greatest service Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi can do for India is to retire into private life. The Congress will flower after them, once the familys glass ceiling is removed.

In fact, one of the main reasons why the Congress is growing weaker by the day is its inability to produce strong regional leaders. This is why it is irrelevant in UP. Or Gujarat. Or Bihar. Or anywhere. To make the Congress relevant, the Dynasty must opt out. Go on, Rahul, get a life. And take Priyanka with you. You will do yourself and the party a favour.

UP Results: Will Cong now dump Rahul as

showpiece campaigner?
He is fait accompli for the Congress. It is too timid to promote any other leader.
Akshaya Mishra, Mar 6, 2012

The Congress general secretary has clearly failed to work wonders for the party. Not that he was expected to but a respectable show here would have strengthened his credentials as a leader. The party would have been satisfied with a tally of 60-70 but a performance in the 40s range leaves Rahuls credibility as a vote catcher in serious doubt. Will the Congress continue to bank on him to win the states? Barring the isolated success in the 2009 parliamentary polls in UP, his performance as the partys lead campaigner has been disastrous across the country. His youth appeal, populist agenda and frequent visits to rural houses to garner attention, and some goodwill, have clearly failed to impress people. He simply does not bring in the votes. The party would love to dump him. But it cannot. He is fait accompli for the Congress. It has to sink or swim with him. Simply because it has no other face to project as the star campaigner. The party has deliberately stopped other leaders from growing in political stature. He carries that Gandhi-Nehru stamp which the party believes impresses some people. It refuses to accept that the electorate has long stopped being enamoured by the legacy business. Rahul Gandhi The situation is particularly worse in states, where the party has steadfastly failed to develop competent leaders. In no state it has a leader it can project as chief minister. Worse, it grooms no local leader who could play a bigger role in future. No wonder, it is out of the picture in many important states. The Congress is paying the price for weakening the states to keep the central leadership strong. It has been a long practice which has started yielding disastrous results now. Rahul Gandhi will continue to be the star campaigner of the party for this precise reason. He will be expected by Congressmen to compensate for the weakness of the party organisation and the leadership vacuum at all levels.

hat next for Rahul Gandhi? What next for the Congress?

To be fair to him, he is hard-working. He does the leg work and gives the party his best. But is that enough to win the Congress elections in states? Bihar earlier and UP now clearly suggest that the answer is no. Such efforts are required to be backed by an organisational structure and local leadership. Both have been systematically destroyed by the partys central organisation. Sonia Gandhi as the AICC chief has done little to reverse it. No party can expect to win elections riding on the personal charisma of one leader only. The Congress, unfortunately, would not accept this reality. What went wrong in UP? Rahul did the hard yard, no doubts about that. He raised the issue of land losers, farmers and other disadvantaged sections, traversed the length and breadth of the state interacting with people and made welldirected attacks on the rival political parties at election rallies. All these are sensible political moves. At one point, his rivals sought to emulate him too. He made the right splash before the elections, then why did the votes go to the Samajwadi Party? The answer lies with the Congress itself. It is intriguing that the party failed to capitalise on its success in the 2009 parliamentary elections and go on to build the organisational infrastructure. It is obvious that the partys MPs have failed to deliver. The irony of the situation is difficult to ignore in this electio, where the party has performed badly in the Gandhi pocket boroughs Amethi and Rai Bareli. The local leaders of the party, obviously, have done little to help the party. The consequences are clear in the results. The Congress uses Rahul more or less as a film star campaigner and does little to back him up. But that does not exclude Rahuls culpability. He has been around for long enough to realise the weaknesses of the party. He has to be too dumb or too indifferent not to realise these. What has he done about it? Nothing. It seems he simply loves the stature the party offers him and stops at that. Be sure in Gujarat, he will do an encore to the UP show. Nothing really changes in the Congress.

Educating Rahul Gandhi:

5 lessons from the UP debacle
Rahul Gandhi claims that the Uttar Pradesh loss offers him a lesson in politics. Here are five for the road.
Venky Vembu, Mar 7, 2012

or those with an inclination to learn, there are sermons even in stones. After being humbled by the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, Rahul Gandhi was a picture of contrition on Tuesday, stepping up to take responsibility for the Congress poor show, and acknowledging that the verdict offered him much to ponder about. Its a very good lesson for me, Rahul Gandhi said during a brief interaction with the media in New Delhi. I think it will make me think in detailed ways, which I like to do. The defeat must have been especially galling for Rahul Gandhi, since so much of his own political progression was invested in a revival of the Congress in UP. If he had delivered UP, he would have added some weight to the vacuous claims of dynasty worshippers that the prime ministership is his for the taking. Of all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these: It might have been But sweet are the uses of adversity. If Rahul Gandhi is really earnest about learning lessons from the debacle in UP, there is much that he can learn. Here are five lessons. Politics of identity is a loser. For all his claims to wanting to take the high moral ground and changing the political discourse, Rahul Gandhis campaign in Uttar Pradesh rested on the most regressive pandering to caste and communal identity. Its true, of course, that caste and religious affiliations run strong and not just in Uttar Pradesh. But repeated invocations and reinforcements of that identity, in the manner that Rahul Gandhi did, was particularly unimaginative, and eventually proved a losing proposition. For instance, in Ramabai Nagar, where he invoked telecom guru Sam Pitrodas caste affiliation evidently to pander to backward class constituencies, the Congress did not win even one seat. The experience of other Congress leaders who too resorted to identity politics is also illustrative. Salman Khurshids repeated pandering to Muslim voters with the Congress promise

of sub-quotas for Muslims even daring the Election Commission to hang him for violation of the model code of conduct proved fruitless. Khurshids wife finished fifth in a four-way race, which takes some doing. The Congress failed to win even one of the four Assembly segments in Farrukkabad. If Rahul Gandhi wishes to learn a lesson from this, it is that the era when identity politics alone could win elections is over. Change the idiom.

Grassroots work pays, not gimmickry. Rahul Gandhis campaign in UP was high on theatrics and low on grassroots-level earnestness. Whether it was his shrill campaign in Bhatta Parsaul, his showcase visits to Dalit homes, his resort to padayatra politics (a throwback to the 1980s), they symbolised an effort to rule the news cycle of the day, not a sincerity about addressing genuine problems. While such interventions were doubtless made for television, and may have earned him more airtime, they also fed a creeping cynicism that focussed on the hollowness of his core campaign theme. In Jewar Assembly constituency in Bhatta Parsaul, the Congress candidate lost to the BSP. Likewise, in Aligarh, where Rahul Gandhis padayatra ended, the Congress lost to the SP. Even the visual of Rahul Gandhi tearing up the Samajwadi Partys manifesto promises at a Lucknow rally made for riveting footage, but in the end it didnt count for much: among the nine Assembly seats in Lucknow, the Congress won only one. Lesson for Rahul: go easy on gimmickry; they

make for good television, but show you up to be immature. Walk the talk on corruption. One of the supreme ironies of this campaign was that it was Rahul Gandhi who, more than the Samajwadi Party, highlighted the corruption in the Mayawati administration, which was a key campaign theme that led to her downfall. But it was the SP that harvested the fruits of that backlash against the Mayawati government. Given the record of the Congress the monumental scandals at the Central level and its manifest attempt to beat back Team Annas efforts to draw up a strong Lokpal Bill Rahul Gandhis anti-corruption rhetoric lacked credibility. If theres a lesson for Rahul Gandhi, it is that you have to walk the talk on fighting corruption. Both in UP and in Punjab, the big ticket corruption scandals at the Centre swamped the low level corruption in the States. There are limits to welfare politics. During his campaign, Rahul Gandhi made much of his efforts to secure a Rs 7,000 crore welfare package for weavers in Uttar Pradesh. The UPA government also rushed a fiscally ruinous Food Security Bill through, manifestly with an eye on the UP elections. But the results show that while voters are not unmindful of such welfare measures, they dont repay that gratitude with their votes.

In fact, as the experience in Tamil Nadu last year showed, even limitless freebies and cash handouts arent enough to sway voters: they take the freebies and the cash and then vote the other way. Its a lesson that Rahul Gandhi can profit from: throwing money from the public exchequer around as if it were the family khazana is both irresponsible and unrewarding. Sycophants do more harm than good. The ceaseless chatter among sycophantic dynastic worshippers about Rahul Gandhis prime ministerial destiny proved too much of a distraction and may have triggered a backlash. As former Indian Express editor BG Verghese notes, The issue for the Congress has been whether Rahuls whiskers will grow by half an inch rather than whether the central government can move forward. They have their priorities hopelessly wrong. Leaders like Digvijay Singh, who come out batting for Rahul Gandhi and ostensibly shielding him from the big bad world of politics, actually do more harm than good. It does no good for Rahul Gandhi to be cocooned from bad news, particularly when filtering it out only leads to a flawed understanding of reality on his part. The lesson for Rahul Gandhi: silence the chalisa chanters and break out of your cocoon. You will find that reality is a parallel universe that, while not always appreciative, is a lot more honest.

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