UP Polls - Is The BJP A Wee Bit Jittery?

Post its 2014 spectacular victory in the Lok Sabha election, the BJP was still riding high on the Modi magic, people were still hopeful of the acche din that he had promised, and the opposition was still in complete disarray, having been decimated .

It was against this backdrop that the Uttar Pradesh assembly election was held in 2017 . Nobody was surprised when the BJP emerged victorious on 311 seats, having captured over 40 percent of the vote share. In all, the BJP and its allies, the Apna Dal and Bharatiya Suheldev Samaj Party had registered victory on 324 seats.

The Samajwadi Party, which had gone against its grain to stitch up an alliance with the Congress party, could only manage to win 47 seats, with a 21.82 percent vote share. Its alliance partner, the Congress could only manage to win seven seats with six percent votes. The other major opposition party, the BSP, finished a poor third with only 19 seats and a 22 percent vote share.

The Samajwadi Party, which was ruling the state then with Akhilesh Yadav as chief minister, had gone to the polls with a family feud raging in the background, all its dirty family linen being washed in full public view. The father-son-uncle triumvirate of the Yadav parivaar was at daggers drawn with each other.

A discredited Congress was still to recover from its drubbing in the Lok Sabha election and the BSP was still getting its act together.

Even though the BJP had gone to the polls without a local face, Yogi Adityanath was hoisted from above post poll, the Modi name was then enough for the party to go ooh lala, laughing all the way to the chief minister’s oath taking ceremony.

If the BJP leaders are to be believed, they have done spectacular development work all over the state in the last five years. Then why is it that they refrain from talking about their own work and hark back to those “ abbaajaan ruled” days when the people’s money was being wasted on building “ kabristaan” walls, instead of constructing the Ram temple, or Kashi Vishwanath Corridor or creating facilities for pilgrims thronging to Krishnajanmabhoomi temple in Mathura?

Is it because if they talk about any other development work, like the Yamuna Expressway, or the recently inaugurated Purvanchal Expressway, or the proposed Ganga expressway, they would also have to mention that these were projects initiated by the previous Akhilesh Yadav government?

If they talk about the proposed Jewar International Airport, they would also have to tell people how Mayawati had conceptualized the project, or how Akhilesh Yadav had pushed for it while the Centre had stonewalled it then.

If they talk about the metro rail they would also have to admit that it was indeed Akhilesh Yadav who had flagged off the Lucknow metro rail project in Uttar Pradesh.

Aware that there is actually nothing for which they can lay sole claim, the BJP has finally settled down to its pet agenda of “bhaijaan, chachajaan, abbajaan” story, love jihad , forced religious conversion bogey and so on.

And as the election is approaching, the virulent campaign is reaching its crescendo. Minority bashing has emerged as their sole agenda. Talking about how the Yogi government has controlled corruption and crime, the Prime Minister mentioned the Sotiganj scrap market in Meerut recently where the UP government has seized wealth to the tune of Rs. 65 crores from three scrap dealers. Making it sound as if each and every scrap dealer in Sotiganj is engaged in theft, the prime minister painted a picture as if the entire Muslim community in Meerut was involved in the illegal activity. Inevitably, each speech by the top leaders of the BJP is laced with innuendoes against Muslims.

Thus it is no surprise that the lower rung leaders and fringe right wing organizations have taken cue and incidents of attacks on Minorities have gone up. Not only Muslims, even Christians have come under attack for the purported bogey of conversion.

In an unprecedented attack on Christians, right wing hoodlums attacked a Christmas Eve gathering in Agra and, shock of all shocks, burnt the effigy of Santa Claus! The hoodlums, led by one Ajju Chauhan, formerly a prominent VHP leader, shouted “Santa Claus murdabaad.” One is still to hear of any police action in this case.

In another similar shocking incident, right wing youth organization activists, mainly Bajrang Dal and Hindu Yuva Vahini, protested in front of Matridhaam Ashram in the Chandmari area of Varanasi, the prime minister’s own constituency, on Christmas Eve and shouted slogans against Christians and Christianity.

Matridhaam Ashram is not even a church. It is a place where people of all faiths gather and offer prayer. On Christmas Eve a similar prayer meeting was organized when the goons surrounded the ashram, shouted slogans and disrupted the prayer meeting. According to eyewitnesses, the police, which had been duly informed of the programme, was nowhere to be seen. The goons, after disrupting the programme and warning those gathered against conversion left. So far there is no report of the police having initiated any action against trouble mongers.

The fact that there is a deliberate attempt by the right wing organisations to communally polarize the voters became obvious when on January 2, 2022, Hindu Yuva Vahini members, brandishing swords and other weapons, held a motorcycle rally in Muslim dominated areas of Varanasi, shouting slogans like “ kashi me rehna hai to Ram Ram kehna hai,” and playing loud objectionable songs on the DJ. Apparently there was no occasion for such a rally, but the local administration remained a mute spectator and nobody else in the government has yet found anything objectionable in this rally.

“ We realize that this is a deliberate attempt to communally polarize the voters, but we have to stay alert and not bite their bait,” says a prominent Muslim religious leader from Varanasi. He says the elders in the community have the responsibility to keep the youth under control otherwise the situation could turn ugly.

P L Punia, senior Congress leader, who is the party’s campaign incharge, said since the BJP has nothing to show by way of achievement, it is harking back to its communal agenda. “ People are fed up with this government due to escalating prices, rising joblessness and vitiating social atmosphere. It is their old and time tested trick to fall back on the communal card,” he added.

Reacting to Amit Shah’s claim of “ teen so ke paar” Punia said that Shah should also tell us which 100 seats he is going to lose. He further maintained that there is nervousness in the BJP camp as people have made up their mind for change. “Which way the change will lead remains to be seen but BJP is not coming back,” Punia said.

Is the BJP getting jittery by the crowds gathering at Akhilesh Yadav’s meetings? It is still too early to say which way the wind will blow in UP, but there indeed is a lot at stake for the ruling BJP.