Monday, January 14, 2019

Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'The SP-BSP tie-up to combat BJP' that was published in Newsband


The SP-BSP tie-up to combat BJP
The Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party have thrown a serious challenge to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. They have alienated the Congress, which is the only national-level force in an emerging anti-BJP coalition. The two biggest parties in U.P.'s opposition space have equally carved out 76 of the 80 seats between themselves, leaving four to the Congress and the Rashtriya Lok Dal,
The Congress has been pushed into a forlorn corner in India's most populous State. The regional parties know it is easier to do business with a weakened Congress than with a resurgent one. The strategy of the SP and the BSP and some other regional players to defeat the BJP without making the Congress win is high-risk and difficult to implement.
It is very clear from the past experience that opposition unity is a failed experiment. This is due one and only one reason - the greed! They act as if they were starved and grab everything causing indigestion. Let any single party come to power, that will be better for the nation. But let it be without anyone from regional opportunist parties.
Congress is running after the regional parties and this has affected their national identity. There is not a single leader worth looking up to. It is really scary to think of PM from the SP-BJP-Congress-TMC-TDP. Do any of the leaders of these parties have any stature in the International arena?
The main reason for the alliance between SP and BSP is the humiliation suffered by SP in the recent State elections in which SP found Congress as baggage. Rahul Gandhi lacks the charisma as compared to Sonia Gandhi. Rahul Gandhi flip flops on religious issues extracts less applause but more laughter.Thus this alliance was more out of frustration against Rahul rather against BJP. BJP might put all its acts together to gain the confidence of UP electorate to win all those seats.
Somehow we are getting more and more entrenched into personality politics. Our media is of least help in giving a shift from this trend. The media’s loud cry about tall leaders than proffered policies is deafening and blinding the perceptions of majority. When will media dialogues will mature to fore-stage the policy differences, that day will be the day our Indian politics attain maturity. Let the media take a conscious effort to stop indulging in the image building of preferred leaders and demeaning of other leaders. Don’t we have enough free media to move in that direction?
The SP BSP combination might have helped in assembly elections but it would not be the same for Loksabha elections.The people have a different view when it comes to voting for Loksabha.The Congress is now left alone; it has to attack the combination and BJP to win seats in UP
All alliances are for mutual benefit and no one cares about a common programme or common ideology. Success of alliance between two parties, BSP & SP, will be obviously dependent on caste equations and on division of votes. Benefit of division of votes went to BJP in 2014 Lok Sabha election. No one knows what will happen in 2019 election. Voters are aware of dangers of such opportunistic alliances but are simply helpless. They have very little say in this regard. But they can reject such alliances by voting for either of two national parties, Congress & BJP.
SP and BSP are themselves not confident in winning the UP elections independently in UP. Opposition parties who were enemies for more than two decades can never remain united and it clearly implies that neither of these parties have anything common for the development of UP. The only thing they have in common is 'Keeping BJP out'. UP people must now clearly understand that SP and BSP are joining hands just with the dream of Non BJP alternative only and not with any agenda of UP development. In the process, they have ousted Congress from the UP elections. The opposition are already proving themselves that 'Mahagatbandhan' is a failed experiment at both the state level and central level also.

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