Assembly polls in UP will go down as bitterly fought battle

Lucknow : The elections for the seventeenth Uttar Pradesh assembly which are scheduled to be concluded on Wednesday will be remembered for quite a few actions and events. The highlighter will be first used for the Samajwadi Party and Congress pre-poll alliance which was the first of its kind in the electoral history of the state.

For the story-tellers its holds significance because the party has come to power after the demolition of the Babri mosque thrice on the basis of anti-congress propaganda. The party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav had created an anti-BJP and anti-Congress wave after the demolition and made a deep dent into Muslim and Dalit vote-bank of the oldest political party.

The party patriarch, left to himself, would have used the same plank in this year's election too, possibly with greater success. And he has made no secret about it. On more than one occasion he has spoken against the alliance which was the handiwork of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and his daughter-in-law Dimple Yadav. Talks over the tie-up was almost over but the duo intervened and made it possible.

It is equally noteworthy that only a couple of weeks before the pre-poll agreement party's vice-president Rahul Gadnhi had undertaken a Yatra highlighting the SP-misrule. The party has been out of power for 27 years and had found it the main reason for socio-economic backwardness.

Yet, the two joined hands together, giving a food for thought for future writers. Success or failure of this pact will be equally important for them as well as these two parties. The current thinking is that it has done more good to the Congress than the SP.

This year's assembly polls in the state had some other peculiarities. There was a greater use of technologies by the major players than in the past. The Bahujan Samaj Party which had largely depended on the old methods too made a shift.

War-rooms were set up by both the BJP and the SP to outreach voters in the semi-urban and rural areas. New slogans were coined and new propaganda materials used to beat each other. Services of popular script writers were availed with ease.

Towards the end, the campaigning had turned bitter and no-hold was barred in attacks. All kinds of similes and metaphors were used. Animal imagery was not a taboo either. Comparison was made with donkeys which are remotely associated with any thing intelligent .

Personal attacks had became a common feature as the elections progressed. And accusing finger in this regard cannot be raised against one. Clearly, the seven-phase elections will go down in the history as the most bitterly fought battle in the state.

Also read: Major political parties in UP to fall short of their expectations