The Big Story: Riding solo

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav is going to head out on a rath yatra from November 3, beginning his campaign in the state that is up for elections next year. That seems normal enough, until you realise that it also likely means he will miss the Samajwadi Party’s silver jubilee celebrations in Lucknow on November 5. There are also suggestions that the chief minister will not be at his party’s two-day meeting of district-level officials and the state executive on October 21-22.

Most significantly, Yadav announced his decision to take out the yatra in a letter to his father, party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav. The letter sees Akhilesh pointing out that all other parties have begun campaigning in the state, but his yatra – which was supposed to begin on October 3 – has been delayed.

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The reasons for this have been clear for all to see: The Samajwadi Party is in turmoil. As Mulayam Singh Yadav attempts to take back control of the party from his son, other relatives and the rest of the party apparatus has been forced to take sides. The older set is being projected as being stuck in the traditional mold of Muslim-Yadav identity politics, which prefers to control the state like a fiefdom, while the younger side backing Akhilesh Yadav is advertised as the one demanding “development.” In reality, the factions have much more to do with familial control, a question of which side of the Yadav family gets to take charge of the Samajwadi Party – especially if the party is hit by anti-incumbency and left out of power.

Things are so bad that there are even discussions of a split in the party, which would be disastrous for the Samajwadi Party. Already questions can be asked about what sort of campaign Akhilesh Yadav will run. Is he going to travel as Uttar Pradesh chief minister? Is he going to solicit support for himself within the Samajwadi Party, almost as if it is a chief ministerial primary? And most pertinently, how can he demand votes from the public, if he can’t even be certain that pressing the Samajwadi Party button on the machine will be the same as a vote for him?

The Big Scroll

  • Has Akhilesh Yadav (almost) announced a split in the Samajwadi Party, asks Dhirendra Jha. 
  • Will the crisis in the Samajwadi Party force Amit Shah to rethink his strategy in UP, also by Dhirendra Jha. 
  • Yadav vs Yadav in Uttar Pradesh is father (once again) reminding son who’s boss, writes Ajoy Bose. 

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Political Pickings

  1. The Tamil Nadu Cabinet discussed the Cauvery row at a meeting headed by Finance Minister O Panneerselvam – and a photograph of Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa. 
  2. The Goods and Services Tax Council was unable to settle on a decision about the tax rate, which will now come up again in the first week of November. 
  3. The Chhattisgarh Congress suspended a Member of the Legislative Assembly for “anti-party remarks” against party Vice President Rahul Gandhi, prompting him to say that he cannot call “a donkey, a horse”.
  4. Jawaharlal Nehru University is once again simmering, this time over the disappearance of a student after he had an altercation with activists from the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad. 

Punditry

  1. “Islamabad and New Delhi have discovered a new source of national prowess – the howling television anchor,” writes Raza Rumi in the Indian Express.
  2. Salil Tripathi in Mint writes about the neo-patriotic mob that is carrying out surgical strikes on all Indo-Pakistani people-to-people contacts.
  3. India cannot allow its selective alignment, a replacement for non-alignment, to turn into sequential agreement with whichever global leader is in town, writes KC Singh in The Hindu. 

Giggles

Don’t Miss

Atanu Mitra tells us how, on a monumental Wednesday evening, Bengaluru FC scripted Indian football’s proudest moment.

Indian clubs, often because of being drawn against West Asian opponents and otherwise because they have, at times, been too casual in their approach, had never been able to stamp their supremacy in Asia’s version of the Europa League. Bengaluru’s success is a glaring example of how far the I-League clubs can go when the vision and the temperament is right.

Even if the club comes second best in the summit clash, their professionalism should have a deep influence on how the Indian clubs are run in the near future. Despite the innumerable deficiencies of Indian football, Bengaluru FC has been able to leave a permanent mark with such a short history. It is time the older outfits follow suit.