New Delhi: How Yogi Adityanath pipped his competitors to become the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh in 2017 remains a mystery. That he has survived to emerge as the longest-serving CM of the state is a reality.
In the spring of 2027, the head of the Nath monastic order in Gorakhpur will brace himself for another contest at the hustings, seeking a third consecutive term.
The recent BJP victories in West Bengal and Assam have enthused the party cadre across the country. In both states, religious polarisation shored up the BJP’s numbers to a three-fourths majority.
He recently warned against offering prayers on roads and mooted “namaz in shifts”.
Amid a call by a section of Muslim clerics to name the cow a national animal, Yogi said those making the demand “also support cow slaughter.”
The Varanasi municipality last week decided to shift more than 350 meat and poultry shops out of the city during the holy month of Sawan.
The state government has ordered all higher education institutions to set up ‘anti-conversion cells.’
The BJP is working to darn patches in the grand Hindu marquee ahead of the high-stakes battle in the state that sends 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha.
There are reasons why it is doing that.
After winning every LS and assembly election since 2014, the BJP fell well short of the halfway mark in the 2024 general elections – because UP flipped quite decisively.
That the reversal was inflicted just months after the consecration of the Ram Temple at Ayodhya also raised questions on whether the Mandir politics has completed its course.
The outcome was significant as it was the first time since Modi’s ascension to power at the centre, the BJP in UP polled fewer votes than its nearest competitors- in this case the Samajwadi Party and Congress combine.
The I.N.D.I.A. bloc’s ‘Save Constitution’ campaign galvanised a large section of Dalits and shaved off just enough backward classes from the BJP to help SP register its best performance. Its ally, the Congress, romped home in another half a dozen seats.
Akhilesh Yadav’s attempts to mobilise PDA (Pichhda, Dalits, and Alpasankhyak) and revive the Mandal politics finally fructified.
The outcome raised questions on whether the BJP should seek to re-prioritise its social coalition in the state to win back non-Yadav OBCs that were drifting away. In retrospect, the infighting within the state unit and the lack of synergy between Lucknow and Delhi also contributed to the BJP’s losses.
To set the house in order, the BJP decided to work from top to bottom.
The BJP national president Nitin Nabin declared Yogi Adityanath would be the face of the party for the UP 2027 assembly polls. The message was clear to the two deputy CM’s, Keshav Maurya and Brajesh Pathak, that the leadership issue had been settled.
Thereafter, the long-pending state cabinet expansion was undertaken to balance the social and caste equations. Of the six ministers inducted, five belong to backward and scheduled castes. The new state unit chief, Union minister Pankaj Choudhary, is from the Kurmi community, the numerically the second largest backward caste in UP after Yadavs.
The recently concluded batch of assembly polls in four states also indicates that direct cash transfers may not be a sufficient reason for the electorate to vote back a government to power. Voters, especially the youth, are demanding jobs and not doles.
Tamil Nadu has shown that a six-month-old party can mop up more than 30% of votes in its first elections to form a government. Conventional modes of political mobilisation are being overwhelmed by fast and tacky online methods that can change the course of the elections within a fortnight.
In UP, the BJP has been running a double-engine government for the last ten years. In 2027, the duo of Modi and Yogi will again challenge the “UP ke ladke” (the boys from UP), Akhilesh and Rahul.
