Election excitement is at an all-time high with a few days to go before the first round begins in Uttar Pradesh. First off the block is western Uttar Pradesh, and I am told that the BJP had tried to prevail upon the Election Commission to ensure that the polls begin from eastern Uttar Pradesh this time around, since the first few rounds usually set the tone and tenor of the election. However, the Election Commission refused. And with the backdrop of the farmers’ protests, the Lakhimpur Kheri massacre, and the farm bill rollback, this Jat and farmer-dominated belt will set the tone of the election. (As an aside, one wonders why the Budget which was announced literally on poll eve did not offer any sops to the farmers. Has the BJP written off this vote bank, and is instead appealing to the Jats to vote as Hindus first and not just as farmers? It would seem so).
The BJP campaign is being led by Yogi Adityanath in tandem with Union Home Minister Amit Shah who has been touring the state. Amit Shah was also present along with Yogi Adityanath when the latter filed his nomination from Gorakhpur and the two shared the dais when the BJP manifesto was released.
It is also Shah who is taking on both Akhilesh Yadav and Jayant Chaudhary in his campaign speeches and setting the poll tempo. It was Shah who hinted that Jayant and the RLD could tie up with the BJP post polls, which had Jayant doing damage control for the next few days denying this move. In fact, Jayant scored one when he pointed out that instead of reaching out to him and the RLD the BJP should instead reach out to the 700 families of the farmers who lost their lives during the protests.
Amit Shah kicked off his campaign from Kairana which saw violent Hindu-Muslim clashes in 2017 and became notorious for the alleged exodus of Hindus from the area. Amit Shah – and other BJP leaders taking their cue from him – are focusing their campaign on issues of law and order and appeasement politics of the Samajwadi Party instead of the plight of the farmers. On their part, the SP-RLD combine is also raising question marks on the law and order track record of the Yogi government, as well as focusing on the farmers.
In all this, where is the Prime Minister? He was very visible in the cow-belt during the initial phase of the campaign as he presided over the Kanshi Viswanath corridor opening. But, after that, his presence has been reduced to virtual rallies. He recently cancelled his plans to address a physical rally in Bijnour, in western Uttar Pradesh, citing bad weather.
What marks a traditional BJP campaign in the Modi era is the blitzkrieg of rallies by the PM at the fag end of the campaign. Such is the force of the PM’s campaign that it can turn an election around; some feel that it was this that contributed hugely to the BJP campaign in the 2019 Bihar assembly polls recently. But so far the PM is yet to give that last-minute push in this round of assembly polls. And it is an open secret that one state the BJP is desperate to win is Uttar Pradesh. Then why is this state’s most high-profile MP missing from the poll campaign?
Interesting questions, some of which may be answered on March 10th.