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The real vote: for a true picture of UP

The real vote: for a true picture of UP

Author: Balbir K Punj
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: February 14, 2002

Introduction: Despite its progress and brick-and-mortar developments, Uttar Pradesh is still being pilloried for its politics

Electronics to the four state assemblies including UP are due this month. The media is working overtime to anticipate the poll outcome. The English language press always viws an electoral battle in the Hindi heartland through the caste-community-religion prism. This time too, it has polarised the elections on Mandir-Mandal lines.

The contours of their debate are based on the premise that those with the BJP are communal; those who're not are secular. This cerebral endeavour ceases with labelling BJP as 'anti-backward and anti-minority' and hence predestined to lose in the polls.

It's a pity that the Assembly elections to the largest state in India should revolve round the cliches - secularism and communalism. The conclusion of these expert analysts imply just one thing: that the state's electorate is too deeply sunk in underdevelopment and backwardness to tide over casteist-communal considerations. The derogatory stereotype of 'Hindu cow belt' for Uttar Pradesh still prejudices their analyses. That image, once laboriously cultivated by the progressive-leftist combine, presents UP as an beacon of backwardness. There is always an effort to dismiss the importance of the state on lines of its eastern neighbour, Bihar. Their servile mindset does not allow them to see the economic and social accomplishments of Uttar Pradesh at the ground level.

More populous than neighbouring Pakistan, Uttar Pradesh could rank as the sixth most massive nation in the globe. Its dynamics go far beyond the caste-community calculus. Is it not ludicrous that the development factor never gets precedence over caste-community determinants?

In Bihar, RJD enjoys secular credentials simply because it is against the BJP. The Congress and Leftists finds no qualms in supporting the despotic, casteist and regressive rule in Bihar. There is a real danger of their trying to repeat a Bihar in UP. As part of their anti-BJP fixation, the pseudo-secularists could go to the extent of opposing the ban on SIMI, guilty of numerous destructive anti-national activities. They can have no compunction in siding with the Pakistani establishment and comparing the Dawood-Tiger Memon duo with Home Minister L.K. Advani.

It is a pity that the brighter face of UP never gets highlighted. Uttar Pradesh has silently become the leading state of India in traditional sectors as production of milk, vegetable, sugar and sugarcane. Edging out Gujarat by production of 141 lakh tons of milk every year, the state contributes to 18 per cent of India's milk sufficiency. It fulfills one-third of demand for wheat in the country; contributes to 14 per cent of rice production; and grows a whopping 43 per cent of potatoes, not to mention 30 per cent of sugar.

One of its best kept secrets is that UP has surged to the No. 2 position in software exports after Karnataka. The contribution of the province in the matter of overseas computer software export has now touched Rs 3,500 crore per year.

After IT-savvy Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh is the only state in India to connect every district through video conferencing facility. Lucknow and Chitrakoot will shortly have IT universities. The establishment of software technological parks at five locations in the state has also received a green signal from the government. In more than 42 districts in UP, the land holding records have been fully computerised. This is also the first and the biggest databank of its kind in the country.

UP ranks third in the field of industrial development. The state has posed impressive industrial growth rate of eight percent and an agricultural growth rate of six percent in the last five years.

The slog year of Rajnath Singh's tenure has been most productive. This is despite the fact that the annual industrial growth rate had plummeted to only 0.3 per cent during the phase of political uncertainty in 1997-98. Yet, it's an irony that UP should still be known for its coarse politics instead of its very real brick-and-mortar developments.

In comparison to UP, the self-styled ''progressive'' regimes in West Bengal and Kerala and phony advocate of 'social justice' in Bihar are busy keeping themselves anchored to power at the cost of development. Who really represents the backward sections of society?

The ground reality of Uttar Pradesh is dramatically different from what well paid intellectuals in New Delhi project it to be. They unscrupulously label BJP as 'anti-backward' and SJP and BSP as 'pro-backward'. A look at the distribution pattern of tickets to women and backward section candidates by these two parties are enough to expose this claim.

In the 1993 UP Assembly elections, BJP candidates won in 34 out of 84 reserved constituencies. SJP and BSP finished a poor second and third, winning in 22 and 18 seats respectively.

This time the record of the so-labelled anti-backward BJP has been better than these two. As a matter of fact BJP has fielded 137 candidates under its 'backward' and 'acutely backward' category. SJP has given ticket to 123 backward candidates and BSP to 195. BJP has fielded 31 woman candidates whereas SJP and BSP have fielded 21 and 11 woman candidates respectively. The BJP is contesting 319 of 403 seats, while its major opponents are fighting in all.

For the past few days now, the name of Mulayam Singh Yadav has been a favourite amongst leftists. Why not? His dictatorial style of running the state and promoting criminal elements in politics is temperamentally closer to the Communists. Corruption, casteism, nepotism and stagnation have prospered in Bihar during Laloo Yadav's 'family-farm' government. But a worse gun-culture of goons received a clear shot in the arm with Mulayam in UP. For the first time in the history of independent India, terrified by Samajwadi Party anti-socials, the Chief Justice of Allahabad High Court had to call the Army for his personal safety and security of the Court.

For the first time since the Emergency, journalists were systematically victimised through his infamous hulla bolo cry. SP workers acting in tandem with his puppet police terrified the Uttaranchal movement demonstrators. They opened indiscriminate fire and raped women activists. Mulayam Singh can't ride roughshod over the legacies of his chief ministership.

The reference to a hung assembly resurfaces repeatedly in media discussions. While the leadership imposed from above the Congress has become a spent force. BSP is no power to reckon with outside western UP. Mayawati may hold the key to a very sensitive equation, but to secularists, her only sin may be that she had once cohabited with the BJP.

The electorate will exercise a crucial choice this year. It's not merely a question of choosing one party over the other. It is a question of choosing between a government committed to development and a casteist-communalist Bihar model. Their votes can transform the image of UP from a stereotype to a model one. One hopes the concern for development will get priority over emotive issues.

(The writer is a BJP Rajya Sabha MP)
 


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