Briefly analyses the brilliant behind-the scenes manoeuvring by Mulayam Singh Yadav to hand over the SP crown to an undisputed Akhilesh, his son.

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The Samajwadis’ Party: Brilliant Choreography & Script
Shantanu Basu
The Samajwadi drama and media analysis on Dec. 30, 2016, evening, as usual, was confined
more to the ‘fate’ of the Samajwadi Party (SP), post-UP hustings in 2017, a colossal waste of
costly airtime filled with mundane inanities. For neither was Mulayam Singh Yadav (MSY)
greenhorn nor Akhilesh Yadav (AY), a defeated or aspirant Chief Minister. Let us first get a few
facts clear.
First, MSY is barely coherent on TV and evidently not in good health to shoulder the
responsibilities of CMship any longer. Second, MSY has a vast network of loyal followers,
mostly unsavoury characters and hereditary chieftains, to whom he gave out tickets for Election
2017 and took the pressure off him, regardless of their winability. AY understandably wished to
steer clear of such elements, as he did in 2012, hence his parallel list. It was quite likely that
AY’s list was the final one, a major component of the charade that was played out between father
and son.
Third, SP runs primarily on family loyalties, much like the SAD in Punjab. MSY can hardly be
envied being caught between the kids of his two wives, his brother and his cousin for family, and
SP stalwarts like Azam Khan and thousands like him more for whom politics is their family’s
sole generational bread winner. Yet UP is his life blood and retaining it his life’s sole ambition
now. What better candidate than his incumbent CM son?
Fourth, MSY was fully aware of his own physical and unpopularity ratings among his voters (UP
had the maximum communal riots and goondaism during his tenures as UP’s CM, many of
which I have personally lived through). In stark contrast, stood MSY’s Australian engineering
degree holder son, who has remarkably matured in speech and action in the last five years of his
CMship; most so, in his battle to rise above SP’s petty caste and familial loyalties and show
himself to be a development guru.
AY is moderate in speech, quite articulate, knows his State inside out, has no major scams
tainting him as yet, while his relatively young years and apparent modern attitude separate him
from the disabling chaff that are the SP’s present stalwarts. MSY realised that AY was his
worthy successor and needed to be set free or else force the current discredited stalwarts to kow-
tow to AY. AY also had Ram Gopal Yadav as his able and trusted lieutenant, with political
genes in the SP and ambitions of his own that would insure his loyalty to AY. Expulsion from
the party achieved precisely that for both AY and his uncle-adviser. Even if a ‘National
Convention’ were held, it was most likely AY would win the day as SP chief while his detractors
would bite the dust.
As of late morning of Dec 31, 2016, 190 SP MLAs reportedly supported AY. More followed for
the lure of power was all-consuming. Evidently, MSY whose list of candidates and AY’s lists
coincided to the extent of more than three-quarters rightly believed that this charade would put
the discredited old guard to flight and drive the younger into AY’s fold – corpus for a new SP or
a new SP corps to corner the no-good old timers. The odds of the old SP under AY and a new
SP, also under AY, were therefore evenly poised.

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How did AY’s expulsion from the SP help him? For one, he came out in public as a martyr, gone
down fighting to regressive SP politics that traditionally treated UP as a series of family
fiefdoms, not far different from the pre-unified United Provinces. At once, it portrayed AY as the
most acceptable CM face, particularly when the BJP alternative remained unknown, Behenji had
a wholly murky past track record while the Brahmin Congress nominee was no longer in the pink
of health and years and had little to do with that State in the last several decades.
Second, AY was now free to form his own party (there was sufficient time yet befor elections in
May, 2017) and give out tickets to his rank and file or else ‘force’ MSY to hand over the SP’s
reins to him by sheer number of MLAs flocking to his fold. Most of AY’s candidates were young
and presumably, had equally muscular winning attributes like MSY’s ticketed candidates to
survive and prosper in the hurly-burly of UP politics. Nearly all were hard-core SP loyalists but
with a critical difference. They owed loyalty to their own GenX CM, AY, (the same as the bulk
of BJP’s current MPs) rather than to the throwbacks of the past. The antics of Azam Khan,
Shivpal Singh and his like have certainly not endeared them to the average voter and their ability
to win were entirely suspect; split votes were unlikely to make any appreciable difference in the
final votes tally for cops deployed to search for a minister’s missing buffaloes are but vote-
repellents.
Third, AY’s achievements, even if they were a quarter of what he promised in 2012, would be
many times more tangible than those of their main opposition, the BJP and way ahead of the
Congress’s prolonged absence and BSP’s memorials. Law and order was not that bad, even by
openly biased media reports, many mega infrastructure projects were close to fruition, the
Lucknow metro rail on track and life seemed to have improved for the vast majority of UP’s
rural population till Project Remonetisation reportedly wreaked havoc. MSY also realized that
his CM son had far greater appeal in his state than imported and meaningless demagogues and
arbitrarily imposed candidates of other parties in the fray. Plato’s “A good decision is based on
knowledge and not on numbers” therefore applies in the fullest measure to MSY’s signature
theatrical composition, even if he never heard of Plato.
Fourth, the hardships of Project Remonetisation that was only too evident among indigent voters
would account for four-fifths of the total vote. This vote bank was also vastly augmented by the
return of lakhs of unemployed, but enlisted, voters from migrant labour across India owing to the
economic downturn following Project Remonetisation. This would add to the existing body of
votes that could go AY’s way as people look for succour from a perceived uncaring government
at the centre and exploitation by the likes of SP, BSP, Congress, etc. In effect, this Project may
well be AY’s victory tiger, much to the chagrin of the tiger-makers.
The charade has also been enacted just in time as the current Assembly’s term expires on May
27, 2017 and ECI would announce the dates just about 45-60 days before that, i.e. by about Mar.
15-28, 2017. It was therefore good time to recommend early dissolution of the UP Assembly and
call for fresh elections, along with Goa, Manipur, Punjab and Uttarakhand whose terms expire on
Mar 18-26, 2017, even if AY remains the majority leader of a broken SP. Nor would opposition
parties be able to cobble together a coalition for a residual term of barely four months. This
would, in turn, also severely constrain Governor Ram Naik’s constitutional options for any move
to unseat AY would be perceived as being on behalf of the Centre and be unpalatable to a
population already reeling from the endless misery-filled after effects of remonetisation. Early
dissolution would catch other parties, particularly the BJP, off-guard and ill-prepared to face the

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electorate without even the barest minimum cash having reached rural UP and no compensation
for lost earnings offered either.
MSY may indeed have played the greatest masterstroke of his life by virtually threatening to
dismantle the SP, putting hundreds of self-serving loyalists out of the race for Election 2017 in
UP, none in any position to challenge his son. The other options, viz. AY as the new SP chief or
heading a new party terrified the now redundant old guard into submission at the end of the 24-
hour drama with even an AY baiter like Azam Khan swearing allegiance to the young MSY
scion as AY returned in triumph to the SP fold.
My impression is that AY will again sprint to the Lucknow Sachivalaya as UP’s second-time
CM, at least with a simple majority on his own, if not more. If he does indeed make it, he could
also be a major contender for the Prime Ministerial Throne on Raisina Hill in 2019, a far more
popular choice that the current political menagerie has on offer.
For now, India’s politicians and media men and women look like Montessori students that MSY
has made them out to be, that too with superb suspense, choreography, action and direction with
minimum lyrics – set, game and match belonged only to Mulayam Singh Yadav. (1450 words)
The author is a senior public policy analyst and commentator