UP Election: Unique defection election: The picture is yet to…

Dr.Sanjeev Mishra

The bugle of assembly elections has been sounded in five states including Uttar Pradesh. From defections to accusations and counter-accusations have begun. The loudspeakers and loudspeakers of the Election Commission are not being heard strictly, but new weapons are being fired in the field of social media. From Uttar Pradesh to Goa, the biggest to the smallest state, there is a lot of turmoil over the anticipation. All this is not happening just like that. Everything is a jugglery of power. Elections are held every year, but these elections before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections are very important. This is the semifinal of power. Will do anything to win it. This is the reason why defection in this election is also happening in a unique way. Well it is just the beginning, be ready to see and hear anything in the country for the next few days-months.

Let’s start with a small state Goa. There Manohar Parrikar, whom the Bharatiya Janata Party always made the poster boy of his honesty, the same Parrikar’s son could not get the ticket. Tickets are not available to many others, but since in Uttar Pradesh, from the son of former Chief Minister Rajnath Singh to the grandson of former Chief Minister Kalyan Singh, Parrikar’s son was also seeking a ticket. Now if he did not get the ticket, Parrikar’s son not only left the party but also agreed to contest as an independent. It is the difficulty of winning this election that the BJP, which gives a lot of tickets to the sons of politicians, refuses to give ticket to Parrikar’s son in Goa. The special thing is that the BJP, which has been vocally opposed to familism, showed familyism in Parrikar’s son, but in the same Goa, the same BJP has given tickets to two couples (husband and wife). It is only the election results that will tell how much this particular gesture of ticket distribution benefits to whom. It is this politics that Arvind Kejriwal, who has been bashing BJP and BJP leaders every day, immediately agreed to adopt Parrikar’s son.

Why only Goa, from Uttarakhand to Punjab, the Aam Aadmi Party is accepting this atmosphere of defection with open heart. In Punjab, the Aam Aadmi Party has given more than a dozen tickets to leaders from other parties. Not only this, the Aam Aadmi Party had included the name of even Congressman Sidhu in the voting while choosing the chief ministerial candidate of his party. In Uttarakhand too, the Aam Aadmi Party is not lagging behind in giving tickets to leaders from other parties. In Delhi, people from BJP and Congress have already become MLAs from Aam Aadmi Party. In this election, this cycle of defection is not visible at all to the ideals. Amarinder Singh, who had been cursing the BJP for years in Punjab, is now contesting elections in alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party, while in Uttarakhand, Harak Singh Rawat has become a unique example of defection. Harak Singh, who once came to the BJP from Congress and formed the BJP government, was thrown out of the government and the party by the BJP just before the elections. Harak went back to Congress.

The election of Uttar Pradesh has become a paradigm of changing loyalties. There is a competition to prove themselves big by bringing people from each other’s parties into their own party. A dozen leaders, including Swami Prasad Maurya, who left the Bahujan Samaj Party in the last assembly elections and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party, suddenly became part of the Samajwadi Party just before the current election campaign. Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav was not blown away considering it as his big victory, when the Bharatiya Janata Party broke the younger daughter-in-law of Mulayam Singh Yadav, the wife of Akhilesh’s half-brother, from the Samajwadi Party. The arrival of Mulayam’s daughter-in-law to the BJP took place with such pomp as if a leader with a huge mass base had been vandalised. The arrival of leaders from other parties in the Bharatiya Janata Party in Uttar Pradesh is not a big deal.

Bahujan Samaj Party leader Ramveer Upadhyay, who was a minister several times in the state government, did not join the BJP with as much singing as Mulayam’s daughter-in-law was included in the BJP. He was made a member of the BJP in the Delhi office to attract national media attention. Not only this, almost the entire Uttar Pradesh Bharatiya Janata Party including Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya was present in Delhi that day. This game of counter-defection is being seen especially this time.

The ticket fight in the election is also unique. Imran Masood, considered a big leader of Congress in western Uttar Pradesh, left the Congress in the desire of Samajwadi Party ticket, but he did not get ticket from Samajwadi Party either. Now he is disappointed and is expressing satisfaction by getting some of his supporters posts in the Samajwadi Party. In Bareilly, Congress had declared Supriya Aron the Congress candidate, but she became a socialist even before the nomination. On one occasion, Supriya along with her husband left the Congress and joined the Samajwadi Party. In Uttar Pradesh, the Congress is finding such setbacks a little too much.

Priyanka Maurya, who was the poster girl of Priyanka Gandhi’s famous campaign Ladki Hoon, Ladge Sakti Hoon, got angry with the party for not getting a ticket from the Congress. The BJP also immediately gave him a chance and made him a part of the party. The fight for the ticket is that Riya, the daughter of Vinay Shakya, who went to the Samajwadi Party with Swami Prasad Maurya, has not left the Bharatiya Janata Party. The Bharatiya Janata Party also put the father and daughter face to face by giving them a ticket. Before the last election, Swati Singh, wife of BJP leader Dayashankar Singh, who came into the limelight by using abusive words for Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati, was contested by the BJP in the last election. Swati also became a minister. Now there is a ruckus between Dayashankar Singh and Swati Singh over the BJP ticket. Husband and wife are face to face and the dispute is not stopping. Overall, this election campaign has become unique. Now this is just the beginning, this campaign will feed more flowers in future.

The picture is yet to come, devotees!