AFTER UTTAR PRADESH ELECTION DOMESTIC POLITICS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 05 NEW DELHI 002313 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/14/2017 TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM PINR PTER SCUL KISL IN SUBJECT: AFTER UTTAR PRADESH ELECTION DOMESTIC POLITICS WILL NEVER BE THE SAME REF: A. NEW DELHI 2203 ¶B. NEW DELHI 2092 ¶C. NEW DELHI 1946 ¶D. NEW DELHI 1915 ¶E. NEW DELHI 1699 ¶F. NEW DELHI 1675 ¶G. NEW DELHI 1508 Classified By: Political Counselor Ted Osius for reasons 1.4 (B,D) ¶1. (C) Summary: The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) won a landslide victory in Uttar Pradesh (UP) on May 11 and the state and India's domestic politics will never be the same. Mayawati, the new Chief Minister of UP, handed decisive defeats not only to her bitter rivals the Samajwadi Party (SP),but the two national parties, the BJP and Congress. Sworn in on May 13, she immediately began purging the state government of SP supporters and is likely to file court cases against former Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav and his supporters in a matter of days. With a solid mandate, Mayawati has established political stability in the troubled state, and can be expected to restore law and order and reduce all-pervasive corruption in the months ahead. Despite her three previous stints as Chief Minister, she never made much progress in reviving the economy and providing governance and social services. With an absolute majority and freed from coalition politics, she now has another opportunity to deliver. On the national level, she has hastened the decline of Hindutva (Hindu nationalism) and put a badly divided BJP back on the defensive. Mayawati has also caused real worries to Congress. By reviving the old Congress combination of Dalits, Brahmins and Muslims, she is set to extend her appeal to other Hindi belt states and Gujarat in the months and years ahead, making it difficult for Congress to extend its political base. Both Congress and the BJP will likely withdraw to lick their wounds, while the Communists have lost a valuable ally in the SP, as well as their dreams of a "third front." The BJP could slip further into infighting, while Congress could find it necessary to sacrifice a few economic liberals, downplay its economic reform and pro-US agendas and concentrate on meeting this potent challenge. End Summary. An Electoral Tidal Wave -------------- ¶2. (U) Final election results in the Uttar Pradesh (UP) Assembly Elections were announced by the Election Commission on May 11. Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) - 206 seats (gain of 102) Samajwadi Party (SP) - 97 seats (loss of 46) Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) - 51 seats (loss of 37) Indian National Congress - 22 seats (loss of three) Other - 26 seats (loss of 23 seats). ¶3. (U) This unprecedented electoral wave in favor of the BSP and its charismatic leader Mayawati rewarded her with an absolute majority. All predictions of a close contest and a "hung assembly" were tossed aside by the outcome. Instead, political observers agreed that the BSP will likely remain in power for a full five year term. The SP of former Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav was decimated and he submitted his resignation to the governor within hours of the result. The two national parties (Congress and the BJP),were also reduced to insignificance. Left sitting in the opposition for a protracted period, none of the losing parties will be in any position to mount a serious challenge to Mayawati's rule for some time to come. NEW DELHI 00002313 002 OF 005 BSP Moves Quickly -------------- ¶4. (U) Having proved her majority, Mayawati was sworn in on May 13. She put in place a 19 member Cabinet, evenly dvided between the castes, with six members from high castes, four Dalits, eight from the Other Backward Castes (OBC's) and one Muslim. She immediately went to her office and went to work. Mayawati had pledged that within three days of assuming office she would move quickly to restore law and order, curtail all-pervasive corruption and punish the guilty. In her acceptance speech, Mayawati expressed strong support for "reservations" in government employment and educational institutions based on economic need rather than caste identity, emphasizing that there is no reason why poor persons of high caste should not be provided reservations. She also pointed out that by defining reservations by caste identity, its benefits were not available to Muslims and Christians and that she wanted to change these parameters. Mayawati then firmly laid down the law, stating that her administration would not allow "communal forces" to spread hatred and disunity and her administration would not discriminate against any religious group. ¶5. (U) In fulfillment of her campaign pledges, Mayawati transferred 79 officers from the Indian Administrative Service, Provincial Police Service and Provincial Civil Service. She sent those occupying high positions because of their outspoken support for the previous SP government packing to remote areas of the state, and promoted BSP loyalists who had been laboring in obscurity. Two officers were suspended for improperly maintaining the sprawling "Ambedkar Park" Mayawati had built in a previous stint as Chief Minister. She also disbanded the Uttar Pradesh Development Council (UPDC),founded by Mulayam's major domo Amar Singh and long criticized as a focal point for corrupt deals. The "gang of five" (Mulayam, Amar Singh, industrialist Subroto Roy, Anil Ambani of the Reliance conglomerate, and Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachan),have been repeatedly singled out for revenge by Mayawati. Political observers expect the ax to fall quickly, with the filing of corruption cases, raids on businesses and possible arrests. Amar Singh disappeared from the media, while commentators predicted that Amitabh Bachan will wisely stay out of UP. A Woman of Humble Origins -------------- ¶6. (U) Born in 1956 in Delhi, Mayawati is the daughter of a low level government employee. She is a member of the Chamar caste, which is on the bottom of the Scheduled Caste (SC) hierarchy. Chamars perform leatherwork and in rural UP remove the bodies of dead farm animals. Considered "polluted" by their exposure to leather and dead animals, Chamars have been oppressed by the upper castes for millennia. Poloff remembers that in the village in which he resided, Chamars were not allowed to sit on chairs, but were forced to sit on the ground, and could not speak to a caste Hindu without permission. Trained as a teacher, Mayawati entered politics at the behest of her mentor Kanshi Ram, the founder of the BSP. Originally hesitant and shy, she lost three elections before becoming an MP in 1988. This is her fourth stint as Chief Minister (she was previously CM in 1995, 1997 and 2002). With each election victory, Mayawati has gained strength. Her first stint in 1995 lasted only four months. Her last administration collapsed in 2002 after 18 months, when the BJP withdrew its support. Having ruled in unsteady coalitions with the SP, and BJP, Mayawati was determined to win an outright majority in this election, refused all offers of a pre-poll alliance, and can now expect her administration to last a full five-year term. NEW DELHI 00002313 003 OF 005 The Winning Combination -------------- ¶7. (U) Most observers credited her landslide victory to her flexibility, determination and commitment to "social engineering." Congress had long ruled UP through its winning combination of Brahmins, Dalits and Muslims. Initially, Mayawati had crafted her BSP as a party representing the interests of the Dalits and pursued an ideology of hostility to high-caste Hindus. However, she gradually realized that Dalits (at 15 percent of the UP population) were not a strong enough base. Working closely with Satish Mishra, a Brahmin and General Secretary of the BSP, she set aside her narrow caste-based ideology and appealed to the Brahmins, who sit at the apex of the caste hierarchy. She also made a strong commitment to secularism and wooed UP's large Muslim population. While Mulayam and the Nehru/Gandhi family were addressing up to 10 rallies per day, Mayawati worked largely behind the scenes quietly forging the winning caste alliance. She fielded 89 Brahmin candidates. In the end, her Dalit party base remained staunchly loyal and she attracted Brahmins away from the BJP and Congress, and many Muslims away from the SP, winning over 30 percent of the total vote in a four-way race. Mixed Messages From Congress -------------- ¶8. (C) In the days following the election Poloff received a mixed message from Congress, which is reeling from the scale of its defeat in UP. Pundit NK Sharma, a close associate of the Gandhi family, who acts as a "fixer" for deals with UP Muslims, maintained on May 11 that the party viewed the UP election outcome as a major defeat. He claimed that attention had settled on the "neo-liberals" (pro-US, pro-economic reform),as the most likely scapegoats. According to Sharma, the party would in the coming days "reshuffle" the All India Congress Committee and the Cabinet, with the object of removing those too closely identified with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. As part of this trend, Sharma hinted that Congress would work closely with the Left Front to identify a Presidential contender that the Communists would support. ¶9. (C) DNA journalist and Nehru/Gandhi family confidant Rajiv Desai spun a different story to Poloff on May 11. Inexplicably calling the election outcome "the happiest day of my life," Desai was adamant that it was a grand day for Congress because it demonstrated that the old combine of Dalits/Brahmins and Muslims could be reconstructed. Using convoluted logic, he dismissed Mayawati as "irrelevent." In his estimation, Mayawati would not be able to extend her sway outside of UP or fulfill her campaign promises and the winning caste combination would eventually fall into the hands of Congress. Desai would not characterize the performance of Rahul Gandhi in UP as a failure and predicted that the heir apparent would come into his own and win victories for Congress in the years ahead, eventually capturing the Hindi belt for the party. Congress loyalists such as Desai are spinning Rahul's humiliation as a disguised victory, stating that the party would have fared worse in UP without his intervention. Desai maintained that while Congress would "sit in the opposition," it had already cut a deal with Mayawati and would "support the BSP from the outside on an issue by issue basis." While the Communists Play it Cool -------------- ¶10. (C) In a May 10 meeting, CPI(M) spokesman Nilotpal Basu dismissed all talk of a break between the Communists and the UPA. Although the election results had not yet been announced, Basu confided that the BJP was not a serious NEW DELHI 00002313 004 OF 005 contender in UP, as its communal message of "Hindutva" (Hindu nationalism) does not resonate with the voters. The days are gone, he opined, when the BJP could stir up communal riots and sweep to power. Now, he intoned, they can only mount isolated attacks. Although he did not predict the downfall of Malayam, Basu did not see a serious likelihood of a "third front" emerging, indicating that the Communists were left with no real alternative but to back the current UPA arrangement. Instead, the Communists will continue to snipe at PM Singh, who is in a vulnerable position because of his support of the US/Indian nuclear accord. ¶11. (C) Speaking to Poloff on May 11, Hindu editor Harish Khare, who is closely connected with the Communist leadership, called the election outcome a "marginal setback," saying that for the Left, the defeat of "communal politics" (read the BJP) is the real story. With the BJP now humbled, Khare predicted that Congress would seal the nuclear deal with the US and that the Left would make noise but stand aside. Khare also confirmed that the SP was no longer a serious player and that the Left had no hopes of working with the party to establish a third front. He expected Mulayam to be arrested in "a matter of days." In Khare's view, Congress would blame the outcome on its too enthusiastic endorsement of "neo-liberal" economic and foreign policy and would sacrifice one or two cabinet ministers to appease the leftists. According to Khare, the most likely candidates are Finance Minister Chidambaram and Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath. Khare opined that the Nehru/Gandhi family was intent on making Rahul Gandhi Prime Minister, and this goal would not change regardless of his poor performance in UP. In Khare's estimation, this is PM Singh's last term as Prime Minister and he will not be the Congress candidate in the 2009 elections. If Rahul is deemed to be "ready for prime time," he could make his run in 2009. Otherwise, the Nehru/Gandhi family will select an interim candidate. A View From UP -------------- ¶12. (C) Hard News Editor and Lucknow insider Sanjay Kapoor noted that while most observers are crediting the Mayawati victory to "social engineering," economics also played a key role. While Congress can celebrate the BJP defeat, its own economic policies are not popular in UP. Most of the poor, who are reeling from inflation, blame it on the UPA. Kapoor emphasized that Mayawati is extremely ambitious and will now extend her winning combination into other states. He predicted that she will make a serious effort to extend her reach in the upcoming Gujarat elections. This will undercut Congress, which must now compete with the BSP throughout the Hindi belt for the same Dalits, Brahmins and Muslims, while continuing to fight the BJP. Kapoor also emphasized that the BSP intends to win up to 90 MPs in the Lok Sabha and use this clout to make Mayawati the Prime Minister. He opined that a chastened Congress will grant her immunity from prosecution in the numerous corruption cases pending against her, in exchange for cooperation both in Delhi and Lucknow. However, Congress is now in a quandary. If it gets too close to Mayawati, it will only increase her strength, but it cannot work against her, as she is already too powerful. No Longer Politics as Usual -------------- ¶13. (C) This crafty Dalit woman has upended Indian domestic politics and humbled the powerful. She succeeded in decimating her rival Mulayam Singh Yadav and will now exact her long-promised revenge against her bitter enemies in the SP. By doing so, she ended all talk of a "third front" based around the SP and its Left Front allies. The Communists now appear to have decided to take the "Marxist long view" and stick with the UPA over the short term, while opposing its NEW DELHI 00002313 005 OF 005 economic and foreign policies and waiting for the "tide of history" that they believe will inevitably turn in their favor. In addition, Mayawati stalled the political momentum of the BJP and demonstrated that Hindutva has lost much of its appeal. With few cards to play, the BJP could descend deeper into division and will have a tougher time winning electoral victories. She also took on the Nehru/Gandhi dynasty and demonstrated that Congress, even if it commits its heavy hitters, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi, cannot revive in the Hindi belt. ¶14. (C) Mayawati has a solid electoral mandate and for the first time in many years, UP will have a period of political stability. She is likely to use her newfound power to score some initial successes, such as reforming the police force, restoring law and order to the crime-ridden state, and reducing the all-pervasive corruption that has brought economic development to a standstill. This should win Mayawati the heartfelt gratitude of much of the population. We should expect her support base to increase as further influential figures abandon other parties to jump on the BSP bandwagon. To make it over the long haul, however, Mayawati must revive the moribund UP economy and restore governance. She failed to do so in her previous stints as Chief Minister and could well fail again, even though this time she does not have to contend with coalition politics. ¶15. (C) UP will also demonstrate how it can impact events in New Delhi. From now on, the powerful caste combination Mayawati engineered in UP will be applied in other states. More and more upper caste Hindus will be pushed to realize that they cannot dominate the country and must cooperate with those they oppressed for so long. The old rules that dominated politics when the Dalits and lower castes were quiescent and humble no longer apply. Should Mayawati make good use of this opportunity, she could not only turn around the state of UP, but rewrite the rules of domestic politics. However, she has been a mercurial figure in the past and has grown increasing megalomaniac as her power has expanded. Mayawati could easily become an autocrat who attempts to impose her will, fails to deliver on her promises of economic revival and creates a non-viable political party based on personality rather than ideas. ¶16. (U) Visit New Delhi's Classified Website: (http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/sa/newdelhi/) PYATT