LUCKNOW: The specter of Samajawadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav returning to power after two years has revved up the infamous propaganda machinery of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). It was the RSS which was mainly responsible for the web of canards and untruths women around Yadav when he sought to protect the Babri mosque against the RSSVHPBJP’s onslaught in 1991.

The rumors were later legitimized 4S a gospel truth by a large section of the regional Press, which especially went to town over the police firing on the “kar sevaks” in Ayodhya.

This time round, the RSS rumor mongering is designed at creating a nerve wrecking psychological buildup to Yadav’s assuming chief minister ship. No sooner did Yadav and his ally Kanshi Ram of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), stake their claims to forming a government with the State Governor than the BJP got into the act and made simultaneous moves. To bolster its claims, the city was agog with speculations to the effect that 17 MLAs from the Congress as well as 17 from the Ajit Singh camp of the Janata Dal were all set to defect to the BJP. The magic number of 17 safely crosses the one third majority prescribed. Just who are these MLAs? A few names, especially from the Congress were casually thrown around, Pram ode Tiwari, Hani Shankar Tiwari, and Naresh Aggarwal. Of these Hari Shankar Tiwari has an allegedly dubious record of hobnobbing with mafia dons. It’s a sign of extreme desperation within the BJP that it is expressly prepared to rope in such individuals even as it prides in calling itself different from the mainstream parties.

However, there’s a method in the seeming casualness. The names mentioned represent the upper castes, so the RSS underlying logic is such castes are most “uncomfortable” about remaining with apathy which would support a backward caste chief minister (Kalyan Singh was after all a pedigree Hindu neta) and worse, a dispensation, in which for the first time, Dalits will have a major share in governance. Where will all this leave the upper castes?

This is why another rumor gaining credence is that even the normally guarded and laid back senior Congress leader Narayan Dutt Tiwari has been lately confabulating with the RSS and the BJP leaders. While these rumors have not yet been corroborated by even sensation hungry tabloids, they have set the framework for an insidious conflict between the forward castes on one side, with backward castes and Dalits on the other.

‘These rumors reflect the deep paranoia that has seized the forward castes, ever since the SPBSP began making major gains, and the orchestrated defiance of the upper castes against governance by these two sections, Several bureaucrats are no doubt heading towards Yadav’s residence, but with distinct unease. This correspondent was besieged with phone calls when the first hint of the combine emerging successful was given.

Article extracted from this publication >>  December 10, 1993