One of the most bizarre aspects of the recent Uttar Pradesh Assembly election is that the Marxists are ecstatic about the poll outcome. The profile and strategy of the victor in the election campaign clearly underlines the fact that the Marxists have collapsed. In terms of seats and votes, they have been completely routed. The party is extinct in the State. It has lost even the two seats it had held in the last Assembly.

Worse, the Left's 'natural ally' in the State, Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav, has lost the Government to his bête noire Ms Mayawati. But the Marxists have no time to share the concerns and woes of their fallen ally. They are busy celebrating the BSP's victory. To them, it implies the defeat of the communal forces (read BJP). Mr Anil Sarkar, the Minister for Culture and Tourism in the Communist Government of Tripura, is using his poetic talents to sing paeans to Behenji's victory.

The BSP's political march since the days of Kanshi Ram to its victory in the recent Uttar Pradesh Assembly election is a complete negation of all that the Marxists claim to stand for. In fact, the BSP's style of functioning, strategy and philosophy have been antithetical to Marxist doctrine. For the Communists, any association with the BJP is an ultimate act of blasphemy against `secularism'. But Ms Mayawati has been Chief Minister thrice before, each time with support from the BJP. The slogans that fetched votes for the BSP in this election had a strong religious appeal: "Yeh hathi nahin Ganesh hai. - Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh hai" and "Brahman shankh bajayega, hathi badhta jayega". For the Marxists, only Muslim icons are 'secular', not Hindu symbols. Yet, Ms Mayawati does not carry the burden of a 'communal' tag.

Ms Mayawati did not appeal to the fundamentalist section of Muslims; and yet she cannot be labelled anti-Muslim. She made open overtures to Brahmins, assured them an honourable place and managed to win them over while retaining her support among the Dalits. According to the Marxists, the upper castes in general, and Brahmins in particular, must be demonised in order to win over the Dalits so that they can be used as cannon fodder in class war.

Central to the BSP's strategy was the effort to reconcile the highest and the lowest Hindu castes. Accustomed to Marxist terminology and interpretation of history, the 'secularists' had declared time and again that the twain couldn't meet, as one was the age-old oppressor and the other the age-old victim. This dubious political claim has been blown to bits.

Two other myths stand shattered: Muslim voters can be wooed only by pandering to their supposedly fundamentalist preferences and they, as a community, alone hold the key to power. Recall the pilgrimage that Mr Rahul Gandhi made to Deoband, the most conservative seat of Islamic learning, and his boast that the Babri structure would not have fallen had his family headed the Government in 1992.

Not to be outdone, Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav offered many freebies to Muslims and he, along with the Marxists, advocated that India's foreign policy should be 'sensitive' to Muslim sentiments. The Congress came a cropper, losing both seats and votes. A supposed umbrella organisation for Muslims received no support even in constituencies where the community has sizeable presence.

And what happened to Mandal messiahs like Mr VP Singh, Mr Beni Prasad Verma, Mr Sonelal Patel, et al? They all flopped. The furore of pro-reservation lobbies following the Supreme Court's ruling - that the Government should explain the basis for 27 per cent quota for OBCs in institutes of higher learning - had little consequence in this election. A regional party went to the extent of demanding a new Constitution since the existing Constitution disallowed reservation beyond 49.5 per cent and on the basis of religion. But such fulmination did not bear political fruit. The support Ms Mayawati got despite her playing down the reservation issue comes as a pleasant surprise.

Ms Mayawati has given up the language of extremism. She has dropped slogans such as "Tilak, taraazu aur talwaar, inko maaro jutey chaar". Instead, she discovered a new synthesis by declaring that her focus had widened from Bahujan Samaj to Sarvajan Samaj. Here was a platform on which different castes, seen hostile to each other so far, could come together. The post-election statement of Ms Mayawati that she was for reservation for all economically backward people is significant.

Why did the BJP fare so badly? The party was seen as having an underhand deal with the Samajwadi Party. Many thought that a vote for the BJP was in fact a vote for the SP. The BJP failed convincingly to dispel this impression. The electorate suspected a post-poll tie-up between the two parties in the eventuality of a hung Assembly.

For the Congress, too, there is a lesson. With the revival of the myth of the dynasty's charisma, the party was supposed to recapture Uttar Pradesh after two decades. Voters proved the party wrong. Mr Rahul Gandhi's recounting of his family's past glories did not win the Congress any extra vote outside its traditional strongholds - Rae Bareli and Amethi. The well-orchestrated launch of the heir apparent has flopped. The Congress, having lost in Punjab, Uttarakhand and Delhi, has now failed to hold on to whatever little it had in Uttar Pradesh.

The SP's Yadav vote base was the only thing that saved the party from a washout. Though it has lost power, the 98 MLAs that have won on the party's ticket will ensure that the SP remains a powerful force in the State. But the dream of Mr Amar Singh to emerge as the ultimate kingmaker lies buried. The SP may now be haunted by the misdeeds of its ousted Government.

What has won in this election is the call for conflict resolution, not the Marxist fascination with class conflict.

Courtesy: www.dailypioneer.com, May 18, 2007