LUCKNOW: Besides playing out the development during its tenure, the ruling BJP is back to basics. It is pitching in its tried and tested Hindutva agenda with Ayodhya and Kashi Vishwanath Dham dominating its poll narrative and the promise to develop Mathura on the same lines.
On the contrary, the opposition, mainly the SP, which has emerged as the only challenger to the might of saffron, is targeting the ruling party over unemployment, price rise, farmers’ issue and polarization.
The SP is also going all out to defeat the ruling party in its own game by following soft Hindutva.
Notably, the upcoming assembly elections are crucial not only for Yogi Adityanath to cement his stature as the tallest leader in the party in UP but also Akhilesh Yadav as the true inheritor of Mulayam Singh Yadav’s legacy. Akhilesh, with three back-to-back electoral defeats behind him, faces a ‘do or die’ situation in the elections.
The saffron party has been showcasing the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, which has already started, as its major accomplishment. BJP top brass including Union Home Minister Amit Shah and party national president JP Nadda along with CM Yogi have been playing up the police firing on karsewaks in Ayodhya in 1990 during the then Mulayam Singh Yadav’s regime. Branding Akhilesh as pro-Muslim, the BJP leaders are heard daring him to stop the temple construction. Akhilesh Yadav’s views on Mohammad Ali Jinnah are also getting a major echo in the BJP leaders’ discourse.
The ruling saffron brigade’s narrative is getting backing from the well-oiled machinery of its ideological fountainhead Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS). The Sangh ideologues extend support to the BJP on the projects revolving around hardcore Hindutva as they believe that Ram temple and Kashi Vishwanath Dham have been the factors playing a key role in unifying the country. “Pushing the construction of Ram temple on a war footing is a matter of national pride which the BJP has brought,” said a senior RSS functionary.
Playing as party’s Hindu mascot, CM Adityanath, at a recent public meeting in Amethi, said he did not feel shy about accepting that he was a Hindu. “Garv se kaho hum Hindu hain” (proudly say that I am a Hindu). Yogi has emerged as one of the most diligent CMs having toured every district and most of the Assembly segments multiple times during the last five years.
Moreover, the BJP, besides playing up Hindutva, is also focusing on working out the caste arithmetic by stitching alliances with caste groups. Two significant castes Apna Dal (S) and the NISHAD party, are in the pre-poll alliance with the BJP apart from half a dozen smaller caste groups. Interestingly, BJP’s victory since the 2014 Lok Sabha elections in UP has majorly been based on the deft caste arithmetic riding on which the party has been winning elections after elections.
On the other, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav has also followed the BJP pattern of alliances by cobbling small tie-ups to woo non-Yadav OBCs. So far he has struck an alliance with Mahan Dal, Janwadi Socialist Party, and Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP), which was a BJP ally in 2017, and Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD). Over a dozen sitting MLAs from the BSP and a few from the BJP have switched sides to the SP.
To counter BJP’s charge of being anti-Hindu, Akhilesh keeps on invoking the deities and visiting the temples every now and then mindfully. Recently, the SP chief had claimed that he had dreamt of Lord Krishna who blessed him saying he would form the next government in UP and would bring “Ram Rajya”.
Often under fire by the BJP leaders for following politics of appeasement, Akhilesh had recently claimed that the Ram temple in Ayodhya would have been built long back had his party been in power in UP. After promising to install the larger-than-life statue of Lord Krishna in his native village Saifai, Akhilesh recently took part in a ceremony to install the statue of Lord Parashuram along Purvanchal Expressway in Mohanlal Ganj.
The SP had won a comfortable majority in 2012. However, its tally dwindled to 47 from 224 in the 403-member UP Assembly in 2017 when it had forged an alliance with the Congress.
This story first appeared on newindianexpress.com
