NEW DELHI: It is western Uttar Pradesh’s summer of discontent after its winter of Muzzaffarnagar riots last year. Going by the communal tensions that have arisen in Kanth village in Moradabad district, and the confrontation between the ruling Samajwadi Party and a resurgent BJP , a 2014 redux is expected in the assembly polls to be held in 2017.In the see-saw battle on communallysensitive issues, it is the Bahujan Samaj Party which is being squeezed in the area, earlier considered a stronghold of the party.The reasons for this are not difficult to find. According to Dr Prashant Trivedi of the Giri Institute in Lucknow, the village of Kanth is a classic example of what is happening in the western UP countryside. “The village is predominantly Muslim and Hindus there are Dalits. The temple, the site of the conflict, was not consecrated by any Brahmanical rites.Now, however, “jal abhisheks” by high caste priests are taking place in the temple,” he said. In other words, Mayawati’s BSP, stuck between Muslim and Dalit votes and the baggage of leaders like Kadeer Rana, an accused in the Muzzaffarnagar riots, is not able to negotiate this turn towards Hindutva among Dalits in the area.Western UP used to be the stronghold of the Rashtriya Lok Dal headed by former Union minister Ajit Singh and depended on a support base of Jats and Muslims who made up 17% and 25%, respectively of the population in the area.The Muzzaffarnagar riots put paid to this consolidation and significantly drove an important chunk of the Dalit vote into the BJP kitty, as BSP could not read the mood in the area. “BSP used to get a sizeable part of the Dalit vote in the area, which is huge, and dominated the politics of the area along with the more peasentry based RLD,” said a senior BSP leader.Dr Badri Narayan, biographer of BSP founder Kanshi Ram says that a consolidation of Dalits towards BJP happened because of a reluctance showed by BSP to engage in creative politics. “The politics of BSP in the last few years has been geared towards elections alone, with no ideological strengthening,” he said.Trivedi adds that what is happening in western UP, the consolidation of Dalits behind the BJP under a larger Hindu consolidation is a direct result of “BSP’s inability to think beyond immediate electoral gains.”A senior BSP leader told ET that he considered the events of Moradabad i n a c o n t i nu u m f rom Muzzaffarnagar. “We lost our core voter here, and the Muslim vote got split between us, the SP, and the Congress or any other Peace Party type outfit,” he said. He cited the example of Rampur, where SP strongman Azam Khan holds sway, but which went to BJP this time.“BJP won 3.58 lakh votes, whereas the BSP, SP and Congress fielded Muslims and got 5.72 lakh votes together,” he said. “BJP and SP always benefit by this communal temperature, it is BSP which loses,” he added. Narayan says that western UP can only see a break in this consolidation behind BJP by the two “Ms”, namely Mayawati and “mehangai” or price rise. “A political engagement by BSP of the kind that Kanshi Ram used to advocate is needed, otherwise 2017 could well see a repeat of 2014,” he added.