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UP Elections and the Pakistan Factor Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema It is not a common practice to employ the threat of war in order to improve electoral position. This is precisely what the BJP has been doing in its election campaigns in various state elections. More specifically the UP has been constantly targeted by BJP to inject fear among the voters. The fear factor is carefully contrived to overwhelm the rational thinking and choices of the voters. Not only the BJP is talking to the voters about the terrorism and national security but has even been able to elicit somewhat similar talking points by the opponents. As a matter of fact the twin pillars of BJP's election strategies have always been either religious issues or fear inoculations. The last election saw BJP riding over the religious issue but this time it has made the terrorism and national security as the hallmarks of its election campaigns. To offer grand election promises is not an innovative pursuit but it is part of a technique, which, has been frequently employed in many countries during the election processes. In many developing societies especially where the literacy rate is not all that impressive the nature of political electioneering spices are somewhat different. While there exists general belief that the foreign policy issues are unlikely to pay expected dividends in elections, it not an uncommon practice in South Asia to capitalize on some key aspects of foreign policy even during electioneering process. Simultaneously it is also recognized that employing foreign policy issues could reflect the poverty of innovative programmes of the involved political party or parties. However it needs to be mentioned here that in some cases issues linked with the external countries could pay some dividends depending upon the nature of the issue and relationships of the involved countries. The poverty of BJP's election strategy revolves around its inability to advance sound recipes for the main issues confronting people in UP and its too much concentration on Pakistan factor for election purposes. Three aspect of BPJ's use of Pakistan factor in UP elections need to be examined and analyzed. These include deliberately contrived tension by amassing forces on Pakistan's border, accusing opponents in the elections by linking them with Pakistan and the expressed temple construction on the site of demolished Babri mosque. One need not to go into details of troops concentrations on Pakistan's border and in consequence raising the temperature in the region to the extent that it began to send dangerous signals to rest of the world. To endanger the peace of the region and to make the international community nervous because of nuclear weapon status of both India and Pakistan is not only looked at disapprovingly by many but it also amounts to demonstrating disrespect to international and regional community. For what, just to win a state election. In addition, such a diversion also indicates that BJP is not at all pushed about solving people's problems especially confronting the people of the UP. Another aspect of Indo-Pak contrived tension is diversionary. It seems that many in BJP believe that the focus from internal issues could be shifted to external issues. Focus shifting tactics can influence some voters but cannot divert the attention of most of the voters. Issues like widespread poverty, massive unemployment, rampant corruption, rigid practices of the operative caste system, slow development and bad governance cannot be brushed aside. Besides, one need to recognize the competitive presence of other parties which would not only expose the poverty of such arguments but would also be constantly engaged in highlighting and reminding the voters the real issues and BJP's diversionary tactics. Perhaps that's why many of the opposing parties are accusing BJP of war-mongering unnecessarily. The second intriguing but utterly disgusting aspect of BJP's capitalization of Pakistan factor is openly linking Pakistani leader's name with her political opponent in UP. An important BJP leader has been frequently warning the voters of what he calls three Ms; Maulyam, Mayawati and Musharraf. It is beyond imagination that a leader that claims to be fairly high in BJP's line of succession would stoop so low to link an outsider with internal election bickering. It is quite understandable that abuses are hurled against the political opponents in South Asia elections but it rarely happens that an outsider is also subjected to such linkages. A perceptive Indian writer Mr. Dubashi described the conditions of Rajnath
Singh's (the current chief minister of UP) own constituency in rather dismal
and depressive terms. According to his description, Rajnath's constituency
Haldergarh has only one doctor available for one hour a day after the doctor
finishes his private practice, schools have no roof and some no teacher, has
no drinking water in any village and the nearest college is 23 kilometer away.
And what do BJP leaders talk to voters? 'How dangerous a man like Pervez Musharraf
is, and how he is trying to destabilize India'. A militant Hindu group known as Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) has threatened to begin the process of Ram temple construction after March 15 irrespective of legal implications. The BJP became a major political force largely by championing the Ram mandir movement seem to be avoiding to face the issue and evading confrontation with its sister organization VHP. The BJP can ill afford to have trouble with the law on one hand and annoy other sister organizations of the sang parivar. While in power it has to uphold the law of the land on one hand and work out a satisfactory appeasement recipe for its sister militant Hindu organizations on the other. When the construction starts there is bound be a crisis. The BJP is already preparing grounds how to pin that on Pakistan. Unable to resolve the temple issue, the Indian prime minister is already issuing threatening statements. The statements like ' India can create trouble in Pakistan' are totally unwarranted if the peace of the region is a desired objective. Besides, not only almost all Pakistanis are well aware of the fact that India never misses an opportunity to cause troubles in Pakistan but such statements merely invoke amusement streaks. Most Pakistanis recognize that temple issue is a purely internal problem of India and scrupulously avoid involvement in the ongoing debate regarding the controversy yet many Indians rarely make concerted efforts to avoid linking those issues in which the Muslims are involved with some aspect of the Pakistani society. While it is not too far fetched to assume that almost all Muslim related issues or crises developing anywhere in the world could invoke sympathetic streaks of many Pakistanis but it does not mean that the Pakistani would indulge in interfering in the internal affairs of state. Admittedly the Pakistanis would be extremely vociferous with regard to developments in the Indian occupied Kashmir but then one must realize that all Pakistanis regard Kashmir as a disputed territory and not an integral part of India. The latest exit polls are indicating that Maulyam Singh's Samajwadi party is leading the race whereas the BJP is trailing them primarily because BJP did well in western UP and not so well in central UP. Now it is up to the voters of Eastern UP to seal the fate of the contesting parties. Even if this portion of the state equally divides the seats in favour of the leading parties, all indications are that Samajwadi is likely to win the election and came out as the single largest party. It is also speculated that BJP may emerge as second largest party whereas the Bahujan Samaj would get sufficient seats to become the most attractive party to be wooed for the formation of UP government. Undoubtedly the UP is an important state in terms of having contributed so many prime ministers and enjoying largest number of Lok Sabah seats but it still continues to languish in poverty and sufferings that are the product of ill governance. Five out of the fourteen most backward districts of India happens to be in UP. With the kind of election issues that have recently been debated in this election, it is not surprising to comprehend why some Indian writers view this election as a rather 'strange election' in which the ruling BJP leaders opt to criticize Pakistan rather than providing panaceas for improving the quality of life for ordinary citizens.
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