MAYAWATI TO FIGHT ALONE

Political strategies of parties across the country are slowly being realigned, keeping in view a raft of upcoming assembly polls as well as the 2024 Lok Sabha election. In Uttar Pradesh, the first three weeks of 2023 were revelatory. On January 3, the Congress's Bharat Jodo Yatra entered UP.

- Prashant Srivastava

All opposition party leaders including Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati and Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) chairman Jayant Chaudhary-were invited to join in. As it happened, no one turned up, restricting themselves to conveying their best wishes in a pro forma sort of way. But for optimists, even that was a ray of hope for opposition unity in the state. Then, on January 15, on her 67th birthday, Mayawati ruled out any alliance with other parties for the assembly polls as well as for the general election. She announced that in the assembly elections to Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan this year and in the Lok Sabha polls, the BSP will eschew tie-ups and go it alone.

Akhilesh, on his part, transmitted a more amenable aspect to the rest of the field. The former UP chief minister, along with other opposition leaders, attended Telangana chief minister K.

Chandrashekar Rao's rally in Khammam on January 18, thus raising hopes for the revival of that elusive entity in Indian politics-a 'third front'. The meeting was significant as it was the first show of unity and intent after the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) decided to go national by renaming itself Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS).