Relations between the ruling Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have understandably been tense, mainly over issues of central funds and special grants during natural calamities in the state.
The SP has long been accusing the BJP of neglecting the state. The BJP has returned the favour by charging the ruling dispensation with squandering of central funds and making the state a caste-based polity.
Top leaders of both parties often take shots at each other during routine press conferences and public functions. The famous BJP jibe at Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav over the state having multiple CMs was taken by him in his stride, retorting that while the SP had several CM candidates, the BJP had none to offer the state for the 2017 polls.
UP is the SP's home state. The BJP is keen to return to power in the state after nearly one and a half decades. So, it is only natural that the two parties should keep up the pressure, with high-octane public optics and positioning.
Before the 2014 Lok Sabha election, the BJP was largely a fringe player in the UP political arena, playing third fiddle to the more dominant SP and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). That poll changed the political chess in UP, when the BJP won 71 of the 80 Lok Sabha constituencies and its junior ally, Apna Dal, took another two seats as a result of the Modi wave. The SP could win only five, where members of the ruling Yadav family were contesting.
The BSP could not win a single seat, while the Congress could score only the two traditional constituencies of the Gandhi family, Rae Bareli and Amethi, represented by the mother-son duo of party president and vice-president, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, respectively.
With a realignment of political forces, the BJP and SP continue to slug it out in public meetings, road shows and press conferences. Both claim to be fighting it out amongst themselves, relegating Congress and BSP as contenders for third and fourth places.
By mounting vociferous salvos at each other, both have deliberately been trying to project themselves as the worthy challenger, while trying to attract fringe voters in the other two outfits, Congress and BSP.
