By Sushil Kutty
The Bahujan Samaj Party wouldn’t fight the Milkipur bypoll. Behan Mayawati is down with political paralysis and her nephew ‘Anand’, who is off and on her successor, isn’t up to the task. So Milkipur will go to a bypoll without the BSP—voting on February 5 and result on February 8, the same as in Delhi.
With no BSP, Chandrashekhar Ravan’s Azad Samaj Party wouldn’t rate a look.
Long and short is, it will be a direct fight between the Samajwadi Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party—a grudge to be settled between Samajwadi Party Supremo Akhilesh Yadav and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who, if you ask him his name, will answer Adityanath Yogi!
How does it look, this prestige fight? To begin with, the BJP wins the perception battle. The Samajwadi Party has to convince estranged sections of its vaunted Muslim vote-bank to not desert in droves. Without Muslims voting for SP, Akhilesh Yadav’s ‘PDA’ goes for a toss. PDA got for Yadav 37 parliamentary seats, beating Modi, Yogi and the BJP, all in one fell swoop!
The Samajwadi Party became the third largest party in the Lok Sabha with Akhilesh at par with the Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi. While Akhilesh has his wife Dimple Yadav for support, the LoP has his sister speaking for him inside and outside Parliament in his support.
But it was a heady feeling when the Samajwadi Party won 37 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in November 2024, more than Modi’s tally of 33. Best of all, SP won Faizabad, which houses Ayodhya. The Faizabad parliamentary constituency is also home to the Milkipur assembly constituency.
If the Samajwadi Party loses Milkipur to the BJP, like it lost Kundarki, it would be a big setback for Akhilesh Yadav, with implications stretching to the assembly elections of 2027! ‘PDA’ will never rise again.
Point is, post-Kundarki, post-Sambhal violence, post- archeological ‘finds’ of temples and holy wells in Sambhal, the Samajwadi Party doesn’t look like it will win the derby. Hindutva is riding circles around Samajwadi Party. Post-Sambhal, the “SP is up against a resurgent BJP”.
The Bharatiya Janata Party is now banking on doing a ‘Kundarki’ in Milkipur, too! That is, a section of the Muslims dumping the Samajwadi Party for the BJP, like in the Kundarki bypoll. There is no guarantee, but it can happen.
The big revelation is Muslims also are riven with “castes” and divisive, to boot as seen in Kundarki. Reports also speak of a “resurgent BJP.” The same reports talk of BJP returning to playing the Hindu-Muslim card in Uttar Pradesh.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath isn’t talking of “Batenge toh katenge” all the time but there is a Hindutva undertow to his remarks. This, even as the BJP is banking on a ‘Pathan-Muslim vote-bank’ schism which favoured the BJP in Kundarki.
Now, it is the turn of Milkipur. The turn of Milkipur’s Muslim voters to show their true colours! And vote for the Samajwadi Party. From all indications, there is no schism between ‘Pathan’ and ‘Turk’ in Milkipur though one can be manufactured. But with the announcement of the election date, time has become a factor.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath sounds confident enough, but there can be one miracle, not two and that, too, two in a row! If there is a Sambhal effect, there must also be a reverse Sambhal effect, i.e., Muslims out to avenge Sambhal and Kundarki, the police action after Sambhal!
The BJP did extremely well winning 7 of 9 bypolls in November 2024 and victory in Milkipur will be icing on the cake. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s bulldozer action is in full play. All the more reason why the Samajwadi Party needs an urgent win and probably get back its Muslim vote-bank.
The danger to the 2027 assembly elections for the SP is real. Reports say SP has started a door-to-door campaigning in Milkipur. The Samajwadi Party Supremo will do cartwheels with Milkipur in the pocket.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath also faces a Milkipur test. If the BJP loses, the Samajwadi Party will be back to toasting ‘PDA’ and Akhilesh Yadav will be on Cloud 9, his stock in the Opposition INDI-Alliance skyrocketing. The Milkipur bypoll is of special significance for UP’s ‘Yadav Parivar.’
Faizabad MP Awadhesh Prasad, who was given the title ‘Raja of Ayodhya’ after his Faizabad Lok Sabha victory by Akhilesh Yadav, has the responsibility to deliver Milkipur to the Samajwadi Party.
One report says the BJP is fighting to “save face” while the Samajwadi Party is “leaving no stone unturned”. In the bypolls for nine seats, the BJP won seven seats, including SP-held Kundarki and Katehari. The SP could retain only Sisamau and Karhal.
Half a dozen Yogi’s ministers have been campaigning in Milkipur for weeks. It is a grudge fight and it’s a prestige contest. The Yogi “lost face” when Awadhesh Prasad won Faizabad. For the Hindu nationalist party, it was spoken of as just desserts from Lord Ram. The BJP and the Chief Minister cannot afford another Ayodhya loss. Yogi Adityanath’s chief minister-ship will be at risk.
The ministers deployed in Milkipur are the very same who had strategized the Kundarki victory. This team of ministers and key bureaucrats is holding meetings with voters of all faiths. The message being floated is the “BJP works for all sections of society without discrimination”, which is another way of saying, “Sabka Sabka Sabka Vikas’. The Yogi’s ‘Batenge toh katenge’ is muted and so is Prime Minister Modi’s improvisation on ‘Ek rahoge toh nek rahoge’. (IPA Service)