By Amita Verma

Lucknow, Dec 31 (IANS): The New Year is just a few hours away. The occasion is usually marked by memories and hopes but in Uttar Pradesh, where political rivalries have touched a new low, the New Year enters with an unusually high degree of bitterness.

Relations between political parties have turned so bitter that there is almost no hope of leaders exchanging pleasantries.

With the year ending on violent protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), the ruling BJP has been facing flak and breathing fire.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who has revealed his stern side by ordering unprecedented police action against protesters, has been repeatedly blaming the Samajwadi Party and the Congress for provoking violence.

The battle between BJP and Congress reached a flashpoint on Monday when Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra stated that the BJP should understand the significance of 'saffron', which denotes peace, compassion and sacrifice. She slammed the state government for unleashing atrocities on innocent people.

Yogi Adityanath's office hit back by saying through a tweet that, "Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has worn saffron for public service (Mukhyamantri Shri @myogiadityanath ji ne bhagwaa lok seva ke liye dhaaran kiyaa hai) after sacrificing everything else."

The battle is set to intensify in the coming days with UP ministers now taking turns to hit back at the Congress and relations between the two parties has touched a new low.

A year ago, around this time, the ice between the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party had begun to thaw and the two parties sunk their two-and-a-half decade old hostility to announce their alliance on Mayawati's birthday on January 15 (2019).

Months later, after the Lok Sabha elections, the alliance was snapped and an uneasy calm now prevails between the two parties and their leaders.

The bitterness is back in both the camps after SP president Akhilesh Yadav announced that there will be no more alliance for SP.

Relations between Samajwadi Party and the Congress - allies in the 2017 assembly polls - have also deteriorated beyond repair.

"The 'do ladke' (two boys) tagline of 2017 assembly elections has faded away and relations between Akhilesh and Rahul Gandhi are non-existent.

The bitterness between Akhilesh and his estranged uncle Shivpal Singh Yadav has also not ebbed with time despite conciliatory attempts made by SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav. The division of votes between the two leaders, led to SP's humiliating defeat in the Lok Sabha elections but the family and the party remains a divided house.

"Political courtesies are now a thing of past. We belong to a generations that knew how to differentiate between rivalry and enmity. We never let political relations impact personal relations but today, there is no difference between the two," said former minister Satyadev Tripathi, now an 'expelled' Congress leader.