SP and BSP alliance shows distinct signs of strain as Mulayam Singh and Kanshi Ram drift apart

Mulayam Singh Yadav with Kanshi Ram

The cracks are showing in the marriage of convenience. The one-year-old alliance between the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is showing distinct signs of strain as Mulayam Singh Yadav and Kanshi Ram drift apart.

A crisis, sparked off by the outburst against Mahatma Gandhi by the outspoken BSP leader Mayavati had just about been averted when the alliance found itself faced with another one, this one potentially more damaging.

In the recent Vidhan Parishad elections in the state, Mulayam's SP faced major embarrassment after it lost a crucial seat thanks to the refusal of the BSP to cast its votes in favour of the SP candidates, leaving the chief minister with little option but to prepare himself for the worst.

It seems the only thing that stops the growing SP-BSP discord from ending up in an unequivocal divorce is the lurking presence of the BJP and the fear that, if the alliance breaks and snap elections are called for, the BJP would ride back to power.

Said a minister and a close Mulayam aide: "I think we should thank the BJP. The SP-BSP ties remain only because of the fear of the BJP's return."

The Parishad election results are certainly a pointer towards that. In the polls held to 13 seats of the Upper House, the BJP came on top by winning 6 seats, while the SP had to remain content with 4, followed by the BSP with 2 and one for the Congress(I).

In a crucial seat, which would have increased its tally, the alliance snatched defeat from the jaws of victory after the BSP members decided they would vote only for their party candidates.

The arithmetics of the assembly were such that they would have denied the BJP with 175 MLAs a sixth winner, since 30 first preference votes are needed for each victor. The party's candidates secured 185 votes, pointing to cross-voting. The BSP, which needed 60 votes to push both its candidates through, too polled seven more. One of the SP's candidates polled 24 and was defeated.

And as if to rub salt into the SP's wounds, the next day during voting for one Vidhan Parishad seat, 35 of the BSP's 67 MLAs polled invalid votes causing anxious moments in the SP camp before its candidate actually pulled through with a wafer-thin one-vote majority.

Technically, with the backing of the parties that support the Government, the SP candidate should have polled 243 votes as against the 186 he eventually did. On the other hand, the BJP candidate polled 185 votes, 10 more than the party had hoped to get.

The same day, the BSP state party chief Jang Bahadur Patel told newsmen: "Our MLAs will never vote for the Brahmin and the Banias, come what may." The BSP's move did enough to give Mulayam the jitters but, being as cagey a politician as ever, he only said: "It is up to them and their policies.

Cashing in on Mulayam's woes, BJP leader Kalyan Singh said: "This Government has lost its majority in the House and should step down immediately." He may not have pursued his demands seriously but the humiliation thus heaped on Mulayam's government was worse considering that it had more to do with the actions of the alliance partner than any offensive launched by the major opposition party.

It was not the first time that Mulayam was facing the ire of the mercurial Kanshi Ram and his party. In March, when Mulayam arrived in Allahabad to address their first joint public meeting after the coming to power of the coalition government, Kanshi Ram made Mulayam wait at the Circuit House for over 45 minutes before deigning to see him.

And later the same month, after Mayavati's remarks about Gandhi raised a nation-wide furore, Mulayam had to wait for more than three weeks before Kanshi Ram agreed to meet him to straighten out matters.

More recently, when Mulayam suggested that two BSP ministers, Raj Bahadur and R.K. Chowdhry, both non-members of either houses, should not contest the Vidhan Sabha elections and instead vie for the indirect elections to the Upper House, Kanshi Ram shot down the proposal.

Sources close to Mulayam reveal that he had suggested this move because the by-elections could prove dicey for the ruling alliance. For, after the BSP's tirade against Gandhi, the BJP has been wooing the upper castes. They play a key role in the constituencies of Manjhanpur and Hastinapur, from where the two BSP ministers were initially slated to seek election.

Now one of them, Bahadur, is contesting from Ghazipur instead of Hastinapur. And the chief minister evidently did not want to raise the stakes in these elections as defeats of his ministers could lead to major setbacks for his government. But predictably such arguments cut no ice with the BSP leadership.

But a spirited Mulayam shows no signs of being affected by such hiccups, which most would consider major, but by his standards are negligible. He knows that his campaign on behalf of secular forces has earned for him a rapidly expanding constituency, soliciting significant responses wherever he makes an appearance.

At the moment, he is concentrating on consolidating his party at the national level and is touring the country, campaigning for the assembly elections in 10 states later this year.

After impressive starts in Jaipur and Bangalore during March-April, he descended on Hyderabad last fortnight, and meetings with the Telugu Desam Party supremo N. T. Rama Rao and Sultan Salahuddin Owaisi of the Muslim Majlis lent credence to rumours that he was looking for alliances in Andhra Pradesh where elections are due in November this year.

Encouraged by the response he drew in Hyderabad, Mulayam has scheduled another visit this month to the city to address a backward castes conference and to formally set up his party unit in the state.

And the decision by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Vijaya Bhaskara Reddy to announce sops amounting to Rs 50 crore for Yadavs and Kurmis in his state in an elaborately organised public meeting of these two castes in Hyderabad when Mulayam was visiting the city may not be just a coincidence.

He has also chalked out an ambitious plan to traverse all the southern states in a bid to garner the kind of support that could give his party a national image. And perhaps, in a way, send the message across to Kanshi Ram that the SP's fortunes are not forever linked with that of the BSP.

Moreover, some of the chief minister's recent decisions and actions, including the recommendation of Uttarkhand as a separate hill state and the abolition of sales tax by the end of May, reflect an urgency on his part to fulfil his election promises, keeping in mind the deteriorating relationship between the alliance partners.

The fact that he has begun to interact more frequently with Uttar Pradesh Congress(I) leaders and even liaise with Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao proves to a certain extent that in his fight against the right wing BJP, he will not mind linking hands with anyone, whatever Kanshi Ram may think of it.

The BSP's outbursts against Gandhi coupled with Kanshi Ram's disregard for Mulayam's electoral strategies is only helping the BJP to gain the ground it lost in the state. It is this fear which keeps the alliance going.

But even as he reaches out to make new friends and forge new alliances beyond his home state, Mulayam is too astute a practitioner of realpolitik not to realise that he has to keep his home base intact. He gives no impression of being let down and has learnt not to react.

In fact, his present low profile is fetching him a significant response wherever he makes a public appearance. Thus, even as he swallows one indignity after another from his alliance partner, he refuses to take a swipe at the BSP.

The latest development is that Kanshi Ram has made elaborate plans for the success of his three candidates in the forthcoming by-elections, but will not be campaigning for three other seats where the SP has put up its candidates.

Mulayam's schedule for the month, however, includes intensive campaigning for the three seats where the BSP has put up candidates besides those for which his own partymen are fighting the elections.

Clearly, in his second chief ministerial stint as indeed in his first, Mulayam wants to show that if his government falls once again, it will owe more to the irresponsible behaviour of those who support him than to any fault of his own.