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Former Samajwadi Party Minister On The Momentary Quiet On The Alliance Front

Abhishek Mishra, who was science and technology minister in the SP government, says coming together with the Congress is still not a done deal.
Courtesy Abhishek Mishra

LUCKNOW, Uttar Pradesh -- For many months, there has been talk of a political alliance being set up to beat the Bharatiya Janata Party next year in Uttar Pradesh, the state that will send the highest number of lawmakers to Lok Sabha. But the so called gatbandhan between the Congress and two regional heavyweights – the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP) – is yet to materialize.

An alliance between the Congress, SP and BSP would help counter BJP's Hindu mobilization and Amit Shah's social engineering of non-Jatav Dalits and non-Yadav backward castes by consolidating almost 60% of the electorate.

HuffPost India spoke to Abhishek Mishra, a PhD from Cambridge, who was teaching at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad before he joined former chief minister's Akhilesh Yadav's cabinet as science and technology minister and was later assigned the portfolio for vocational education and skill development.

Edited excerpts from an interview:

There has been talk about the alliance for months now. When will it materialize?

I think the national president for SP, and equally the national president for the BSP (Mayawati), they both have said that we will work together. The idea is not that we are aligning against someone, but rather we are allying towards something and what we see as a clear threat to the democracy and the country.

What about the Congress?

That question is still open between our national president and the national president of the Congress Party.

So SP is still not sure about allying with the Congress?

Elections are still some distance and there are a lot of other events that will take place in this country before that. A couple of elections will be fought before we reach the Lok Sabha election. A lot of gauging the mood will happen in the country. As of now, there is no formal decision whether we will work together.

Boss (Akhilesh Yadav) and the national president of the Congress Party (Rahul Gandhi), they have a good working relationship. As my boss has repeatedly said that they are good friends and will always be friends. That familiarity, that tendency to work together is already there. Now, how things work out, that is not only our call, but it is also a call of the Congress Party.

You sound more confident about the BSP-SP alliance?

We've had the opportunity (bypoll elections) to get into a working relationship, test the waters and realized that people are supporting the coming together of the two forces. And also, there was a comfort level in working with them. Then, we again tried to collaborate with them in the Rajya Sabha, and we gave one of the two MLC seats we had to the BSP. That was a great gesture. The entire state is saying that the SP-BSP alliance works.

There are some people who say that Gorakhpur, Kairana and Phulpur all had special circumstances at play – in Gorakhpur, internal rivalries were at play, Phulpur is not traditionally a BJP seat and Kairana has a significant Muslim population – and so winning does not mean the SP and BSP combine has been successful.

Whatever the circumstances, they tried very hard. In Kairana, PM Modi came to campaign, Nitin Gadkari came to campaign. They tried everything. But still they lost. There will always be special circumstances. The special circumstance in this case is that the BJP has miserably failed to deliver that people have made up their mind to not vote for them.

Then why the need to consolidate based on caste...

This is not based on caste. If we had to do that then we would not have run the 2017 campaign on kaam bolta hai. When the prime minister was talking about shamshaan and kabristan, when the prime minister was talking about electricity on Diwali and Ramzaan, when the prime minister was talking about Hindus and Muslims, then we were saying kaam bolta hai. We are very clear in our minds that we do not want to play that game, the religion game or the caste game. The reason people are coming together is because of the way BJP is messing up the institutions of this country, the delivery systems of this country. We need to put our heads together and make sure that BJP does not win because of division of votes.

BSP does not contest bypolls in any case. How confident is the SP of the BSP making compromises for the alliance in the future?

The coming together of two political parties, it will involve discussion, it will involve deliberations, it will involve us giving up something and expecting the BSP to give up something in the process. I think there is a willingness from both sides. Partnerships succeed when both sides see mutual benefit and both sides are willing to give up something if the need arises. The honourable national president has already said that we will make this relationship work. Whatever it takes.

There are some who believe the Congress should form an alliance with the BSP alone, leaving the SP out.

I cannot comment on what the BSP or the Congress might do or not do.

Some argue that the SP will perform better with its traditional OBC voter base by contesting on its own.

I will challenge the very foundation of the question and the perception that we are party representing one religion, one group or one sub group. That's not true. This is the language of the BJP. This is what the BJP like to say about us, which is not true.

Why do you think the Congress and SP alliance in 2017 failed?

It did not convince voters because BJP and its allied machinery were able to scare voters and convince them that this party only represents these two groups (OBCs and Muslims). They were playing a religion and caste game and we were playing a different game. They were able to spread that fear and hatred and we were not able to communicate our work to the people in that capacity. I think that's the simple reason that the results came out the way it did.

Would SP make its peace with Mayawati as prime minister?

In a democratic set-up, where a parliamentary board sits and decides things, that is a question which, at its core, is faulty. It's like electing a raja, and we are not a monarchy or dictatorship, at least not as of now. It is a question for after the results. Can BJP guarantee today that if a situation of allies comes in that the prime minister would still be Narendra Modi? And if they don't agree, they won't form a government.

How are you campaigning?

We are on the streets almost every day over some issue or the other. We are trying to organize public opinion around issues. For example, they promised a ghadda-mukt sarkar, they promised to removed ghaddas in 100 days. There are serious issues of crime and violence against women.

They talk about good governance and transparency. The honourable prime minister has not done one press conference in five years. The boss is going to start cycling from September 16. We are cycling for the preservation of democracy, restoration of law and order and civility to this country.

It sounds like an anti-Modi campaign.

It is not an anti-Modi or an anti-Yogi campaign. There are questions that we are raising based on what the PM said that he and his party would deliver. The buck stops with the PM.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.