Battleground Uttar Pradesh: How Congress, BJP, SP and BSP stack up against eachother

NEW DELHI: Of the four major parties contesting the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election, the BJP alone has not announced a chief ministerial candidate. Congress handed over the charge of UP polls to Sheila Dikshit and Raj Babbar, SP announced that Akhilesh Yadav will remain its face and the BSP, as always, has Mayawati. Let us find out how four major parties stack up against each other: BJP: The BJP believes last month's surgical strikes across the Line of Control have "burnished" Narendra Modi's image enough for him and the party to go into next year's elections in Uttar Pradesh and other states with a fresh dose of confidence. The party will not project a chief ministerial candidate for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections which are a few months away. "All political parties are waiting for the chief ministerial candidate of BJP...It is clear policy of our party that we will contest the Assembly elections without projecting anyone as our CM candidate," BJP satate unit chief Keshav Prasad Maurya said. The issue had got tangled in questions of which caste the candidate should be from. The BJP's other apprehension is a decision could have opened up the factional fault lines running through the Uttar Pradesh unit because Gorakhpur MP Mahant Adityanath's cheerleaders had already begun rooting for him as have Sultanpur MP Varun Gandhi's. In an ABP News-Cicero survey conducted between 24 and 25 July, Adityanath was respondents' favorite as CM candidate for UP elections among BJP leaders. However, by not announcing CM candidate the BJP has ended all such speculations. Congress: The Congress named three-time Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit as its chief ministerial face for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections next year, in an effort to generate a buzz and revive the party's marginalised fortunes in the heartland state. The party also named Rajya Sabha MP and member of the former royal family of Amethi, Sanjay Singh, as the chief of the campaign committee, attempting to get the caste matrix right in India's largest state. Dikshit's choice falls into place with strategist Prashant Kishor's prescription that the Congress needs to recover its traditional core base among the state's 12 per cent Brahmins, who have over the years shifted to the BJP. It is declared that Priyanka Gandhi would campaign for the party. The Congress party boosted its Up campaign with vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s 26-day Kisan Yatra in UP. During his 25-day march from Deoria in eastern UP, the Congress leader connected with around 25,000 households per block in a do-or-die effort to regain lost moorings in state politics. Congress leaders have drawn up plans to sustain the campaign for farmers. They will raise the issue in the next Parliament session. The party is also planning to collate data collected during the kisan yatra to highlight their plight. SP: Days after Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav said the party's Chief Ministerial candidate will be decided by elected party legislatures after the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, the party has now clarified that the incumbent Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav remains its face for the upcoming elections. The intra-family strife seems to have settled down as the party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav decided to take a back seat. An early test of how Mulayam's role could pan out will come when he and Akhilesh revisit the list of "declared" candidates for the 2017 elections and vet the choice. Mulayam had re-nominated most of those who won in 2012. But Akhilesh insisted on a re-look after his team-mates said a "huge anti-incumbency sentiment" was building up against the existing MLAs that could cost the Samajwadi "at least 150 seats", according to a source. The party had won over 220 of the 403 seats in the last elections after netting the votes of most of the dominant communities, including Muslims. The simmering differences within the Yadav family had bubbled to the surface in December last year when Akhilesh stayed away from the Saifai Mahotsav, a family jamboree in their village in Etawah district, for the first five days. Akhilesh was annoyed with his father because he had suspended two of the chief minister's confidants for alleged anti-party activities. Akhilesh attended the Mahotsav only after the suspensions were revoked. The Samajwadi had fielded 67 Muslims and 38 Brahmins in 2012 but sources said Akhilesh would try and increase their numbers this time. BSP The Bahujan Samaj Party has its chief ministerial face in party chief Mayawati. BSP supremo pinning hopes on a calculation that she could reach the magic figure by keeping with her a big chunk of the 21.50 per cent Dalits and 18 per cent Muslims. The BSP had reached the majority in 2007 with 30.47 per cent votes. This included the votes of Dalits, upper castes and a fraction of Muslims. But Mayawati's party got only 25.91 per cent votes in 2012 when the Brahmins were annoyed because of construction of parks and monuments in the name of Dalit icons and installation of her own statues in Lucknow and Noida. The Muslims in 2012 had voted for the Samajwadi Party. BSP supremo accused the Centre and the Uttar Pradesh government of "linking religion with politics" with an eye on "electoral benefits" ahead of the state Assembly polls. Mayawati alleged the Muslim community was feeling insecure ever since the Samajwadis took over in 2012 and this insecurity increased when the BJP came to power at the Centre in 2014. She also warned the Dalits to "be careful of the designs of the RSS". (With inputs from agencies)