Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav must be likening himself to an American politician who belongs to neither of the two major parties that dot that country's political landscape.
For he already had the elephant (electoral symbol of Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party or BSP as well as the Republicans in the US) pitted against him. And on Monday, he also made the donkey (symbol of the US Democratic party) relevant in the ongoing state polls by requesting to megastar Amitabh Bachchan stop preaching for the "donkeys of Gujarat" as the brand ambassador of Gujarat Tourism.
Critics were searching for an inner meaning. We, however, leave that to Akhilesh himself.
But the mention of the donkey has now made a lot of animals relevant in the high-profile battle taking place in India's most crucial electoral state as the route to Delhi's throne goes through it.
Animals at the UP polls
First, the elephant.
When a journalist asked Akhilesh — during a joint conference with Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi after the ruling Samajwadi Party entered into an alliance with the Congress for this year's election — whether Mayawati could not be part of it, the CM said sarcastically that the BSP supremo took so much space and even her party's symbol is an elephant.
The animal is such a big topic in UP's politics, thanks to the Dalit messiah's sincere efforts in decking up the state capital with its statues and her opponents' sharp attack on building those statues with taxpayers' money, which could have been used for the state's uplift.
Ahead of the 2012 Assembly election in UP, the Election Commission had asked Mayawati's government to cover the statues to ensure a level-playing field for all parties.
Then, there is the ubiquitous cow.
The BJP's favourite animal has always been controversial. Especially a year after Narendra Modi came to power, the tragedy that unfolded in Dadri in western Uttar Pradesh where a person from a minority community was lynched and his family attacked on charges of consuming beef, ensured that majoritarianism is the rule of the day, as long as the saffron brigade is in power.
The words of liberalism that periodically come out from the PM have a feel-good effect no doubt, but when it comes to hardcore politics, the BJP still has firm faith in the ultra-sanctity of cows. It needs the sacred bovine to win UP.
The third is the lion – the king of the jungle.
Apart from Modi loyalists who consider him nothing less than a lion, the SP has also had a tryst with the lion in UP.
Akhilesh inaugurated a lion safari park in Etawah a few months ago – a project that has been close to the hearts of both the CM and his father Mulayam Singh Yadav. But the project, inspired by Longleat Safari Park in Wiltshire, England, has not been a success story despite the senior Mulayam's claim ahead of the 2014 general elections that like the lions of Gujarat (some of them were brought to UP), the BJP would also be caged in UP.
The SP faced a complete rout in the elections and the state's safari witnessed the deaths of a number of lions.
Even today, the local youth feels providing employment would have been a far better thing to do instead of setting up a fancy lion park. Whether the Yadavs' pet project delivers electorally will be seen on March 11, when the results are due to come out.
And finally the donkey.
Though the harmless animal is of no relevance in UP, politicians in India are known to make anything have weight.
Akhilesh's "donkey" jibe might see the upper-caste votes cemented and do the Modi-Amit Shah duo a favour. Or, it could also neutralise the chances of both the SP-Congress alliance and BJP and instead give Mayawati an elephantine push.
As a leader said after Akhilesh's jibe: "Donkeys are not bad. But those who create problems with them are the real donkeys."
