The advent of 2011 in Uttar Pradesh will mark the beginning of a battle between all major political parties that will culminate in the next Assembly elections.
Though the next Assembly polls are scheduled in early 2012, the battle for power will begin in right earnest from January.
The ruling Bahujan Samaj Party will open the battle on January 15 when chief minister Mayawati celebrates her 55th birthday. In her address to party leaders and workers who will arrive in the state capital to wish her, Ms Mayawati is expected to ask them to gift her party’s return to power in 2012.
Immediately after her birthday, Ms Mayawati will plunge headlong into assessing the performance of party MLAs and will start the process of finalising tickets for the Assembly polls.
The Samajwadi Party, which remains the main Opposition party in UP, will work on finalising its strategy for the elections in January and the same will be revealed to party cadres in a convention that will be held in Gorakhpur in mid-February. The Samajwadi leadership is also working simultaneously on candidate selection and Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav is preparing to undertake a “rath yatra” in the state in the beginning of 2011.
The Congress, on the other hand, will hold its coordination committee meeting in Lucknow on 17 and 18 January. Congress MP Rahul Gandhi is expected to attend this meeting which will outline the party’s strategy for the next Assembly elections.
Mr Gandhi had attended the first coordination panel meeting in Lucknow in 2007 but a lot of water has flown under the bridge since then. The party reeling under the impact of the Bihar debacle and also the spate of humiliating performances in various by-elections in UP, held in the past one year. At the coordination committee meeting, the Congress hopes to review the situation in UP and draw up a fresh strategy that will present the party as a viable political alternative inn UP.
The BJP, meanwhile, will intensify its “Gaon Chalo Abhiyan” that ends on January 15.