Willing to wound but afraid to strike

Development has become a serious casualty due to the confrontation between the Congress and the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh                                                          

Pradeep Kapoor Lucknow

Confronting each other on a day- to-day basis yet not withdrawing support from each other at the Centre as well in the State describes the relationship between the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Congress, where neither wants to be seen as upsetting the apple cart of secular governance. Unfortunately, this has led to Uttar Pradesh (UP) losing out in terms of development.

On several occasions, the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee (UPCC) president Salman Khurshid dared SP national president and Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav and his right-hand man, Amar Singh, to withdraw support from the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. Likewise, SP bosses challenged rivals to pull out support, but fearing loss of Muslim support nobody wants to take the initiative. Mulayam Singh, in the presence of CPI (M) general secretary, Prakash Karat, accused the Congress of conspiring to dislodge his government.

The battle between the SP and the Congress is basically for the 18 per cent Muslim vote-bank that plays a crucial role in every successive election. The traditional support of Muslim votes to the Congress was snatched away by the SP after the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992. The Congress, for its part, believes that the Muslims could return to its fold if the SP could be shown as a non-delivering party.

That is why Congress and SP leaders project each other as pro-BJP to win over Muslims. The issue of Mohammad Ali Jauhar University for Urdu and Persian at Rampur thus was utilised by the SP as well as the Congress to run down each other. SP leaders, including Mulayam and state cabinet minister Azam Khan, blamed the Congress for not allowing the government to set up the Mohammad Ali Jauhar University for Urdu and Persian languages even after a Bill was passed twice by the UP Assembly.

SP leaders said Governor TV Rajeshwar was working under the instruction of the Congress leadership to prevent the university being set up, as the credit would go to the Mulayam government. On the other hand, Congress leaders including UPCC president, Salman Khurshid, maintained that they were not against setting up of the university per se but were only opposed to cabinet minister Azam Khan becoming pro-chancellor for life.

Now that the Governor has given his assent to the Bill for setting up a private university by the name of Maulana Ali Jauhar at Rampur, Khurshid said when Congress came to power Azam Khan would be removed from the post of life pro-chancellor. Azam Khan is now full of praise for the Governor and blamed Congress leaders for giving wrong information about the university to Raj Bhawan.

The differences continue. Mulayam Singh and Amar Singh blamed Sonia Gandhi for being responsible for the disqualification of membership of Jaya Bachchan from the Rajya Sabha and for the income tax notices being served to Amitabh Bachchan, and raising the issue of property of the chief minister and his family members in the Supreme Court as part of a larger strategy to attack the SP. After all, the person who brought the public interest litigation Vishwanath Mohan Chaturvedi was a Congressman.