SMALL PARTIES IN UP
Dhananjay Singh was a member of Parliament from the Bahujan Samaj Party for five years, between 2009 and 2014. Before the 2012 assembly elections, Mayawati expelled Singh, an accused in over two dozen criminal cases. This year, when Singh found he was still persona non grata, he turned to the Nishad Party. Vijay Misra, a sitting Samajwadi Pary MLA, was denied a ticket by Akhilesh Yadav because of the number of criminal charges, including murder, that he faces. He too is now a candidate for the Nishad Party. Founded by Sanjay Kumar Nishad, the Nirbal Indian Shoshit Hamara Aam Dal has been carefully named so that its acronym aligns it with the Nishad (boatman) community, a substantial voting bloc.
UP has 472 political parties registered with the Election Commission. These parties play a major role, particularly when the race is as tight as this year’s, when every party with votes becomes a potential partner in a cobbled-together government.
In 2012, the Peace Party won three assembly seats and captured 2.35 per cent of the vote, making it the sixth largest party in the state. This year, the Peace Party has formed a coalition with the Nishad Party. The coalition also includes the Krishna Patel-led Apna Dal and former BSP minister Babu Singh Kushwaha’s Jan Adhikar Manch. This alliance of small fry will contest all 403 seats in the state. As Sanjay Kumar Nishad explains, “More than 200 constituencies in the state have more than one lakh people belonging to either the Nishad, Kurmi, Kushwaha or ‘backward Muslim’ communities.” With those kinds of numbers, the major parties will be looking over their shoulders.