UP polls 2017: A tale of two rallies
The BJP billboards begin as soon as you exit Delhi, seeking bahumat or a majority in the UP assembly to put an end to the BJP’s vanvas, reminiscent of the 14-year exile that the Hindu god Rama took to defeat the enemy.
Note that the main characters on the poster, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah have been given pride of place — while significantly smaller pictures of Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Minister Kalraj Mishra, Ganga Rejuvenation & Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti and UP party chief Keshav Prasad Maurya bring up the rear.
Is the BJP making almost the same mistake in UP as it made in Bihar, reserving the limelight for Modi and Shah and relegating UP’s leaders to stamp-sized margins?
Certainly the task of replicating the massive 2014 victory is impossible because there is a real opposition today in the form of the Akhilesh Yadav-Rahul Gandhi alliance.
To win or at least aim at becoming the single largest party, the BJP knows it must sweep western UP, which comprises 153 seats out of 403 in the UP assembly.
Closer to Lucknow in the Avadh region, the Samajwadi Party is much more comfortable in its citadel, while a plethora of reasons in Poorvanchal — party infighting, notebandi and the finer points of caste — are making that region much more combustible and, therefore, unstable.
But even western UP isn’t as amenable as it was in the 2014 election. At a rally in Kithaur constituency on the outskirts of Meerut, several young BJP boys in saffron hats chant “Modi! Modi!” even though they know that Rajnath Singh, and not the PM, is expected.
The home minister realises he must play to the gallery to make a mark. “At least the slaughterhouses are working fine? And the water used to clean them is purified?” asks Rajnath sarcastically, adding, “When Pakistani terrorists attacked India, the PM said to me, ‘Rajnath Singh, bahut ho gaya, kuchh karna chahiye (Enough is enough, we have to do something).’ That’s when we decided to undertake the surgical strikes across the border.”
By now, the crowd is almost hysterical. Farmer Rajbal Singh, who owns 30 bighas, says: “You see they stole my buffaloes, and although I filed an FIR, nothing happened.” They? “The Muslims stole them and then killed them for meat. That’s why we need squads to curb this goondagardi.
The do-or-die battle
Meanwhile, only a few kilometres away and a couple of hours earlier, Akhilesh and Rahul have just concluded their rally in the heart of Muslim-majority Meerut city.
“Akhilesh bhaiyya!” shouts a young man and the war cry is taken up by hundreds of other young men, climbing on top of another in their enthusiasm to record for posterity the scene in front on their mobile phones. UP’s policemen stand by, lackadaisically, as is their wont, believing foremost in the inevitability of fate instead of law & order.
It’s clear that Akhilesh has captured the imagination of these mostly poor and largely jobless youth for a variety of reasons — including the fact that he successfully broke away from his oppressive father — but most importantly because he is painting a picture of development UP hasn’t seen before.
Even Modi’s Vikas card has had to give way to imagined class warfare between the rich and the poor. In contrast, Rahul is almost like an afterthought, as if he’s a guest who must be made to feel welcome, never mind he’s sort of irrelevant.
Come 2019, when general elections take place, it is possible the unthinkable will happen. With Modi defending his throne, it may be that the chief opposition is a leader from a party other than the Congress. The ongoing battle in Uttar Pradesh has succeeded in shattering the illusion that the Congress is still in charge.
In this do-or-die battle for UP, it is equally clear that the Congress is riding on Akhilesh Yadav’s shoulders. Rahul may or may not like the idea of ceding the lead, but he has no alternative but to deal with the reality on the ground. Especially if that’s the price to pay for defeating the BJP on its own Lok Sabha turf.
(The writer is a senior journalist)
Note that the main characters on the poster, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah have been given pride of place — while significantly smaller pictures of Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Minister Kalraj Mishra, Ganga Rejuvenation & Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti and UP party chief Keshav Prasad Maurya bring up the rear.
Is the BJP making almost the same mistake in UP as it made in Bihar, reserving the limelight for Modi and Shah and relegating UP’s leaders to stamp-sized margins?
Certainly the task of replicating the massive 2014 victory is impossible because there is a real opposition today in the form of the Akhilesh Yadav-Rahul Gandhi alliance.
To win or at least aim at becoming the single largest party, the BJP knows it must sweep western UP, which comprises 153 seats out of 403 in the UP assembly.
Closer to Lucknow in the Avadh region, the Samajwadi Party is much more comfortable in its citadel, while a plethora of reasons in Poorvanchal — party infighting, notebandi and the finer points of caste — are making that region much more combustible and, therefore, unstable.
But even western UP isn’t as amenable as it was in the 2014 election. At a rally in Kithaur constituency on the outskirts of Meerut, several young BJP boys in saffron hats chant “Modi! Modi!” even though they know that Rajnath Singh, and not the PM, is expected.
The home minister realises he must play to the gallery to make a mark. “At least the slaughterhouses are working fine? And the water used to clean them is purified?” asks Rajnath sarcastically, adding, “When Pakistani terrorists attacked India, the PM said to me, ‘Rajnath Singh, bahut ho gaya, kuchh karna chahiye (Enough is enough, we have to do something).’ That’s when we decided to undertake the surgical strikes across the border.”
By now, the crowd is almost hysterical. Farmer Rajbal Singh, who owns 30 bighas, says: “You see they stole my buffaloes, and although I filed an FIR, nothing happened.” They? “The Muslims stole them and then killed them for meat. That’s why we need squads to curb this goondagardi.
The do-or-die battle
Meanwhile, only a few kilometres away and a couple of hours earlier, Akhilesh and Rahul have just concluded their rally in the heart of Muslim-majority Meerut city.
“Akhilesh bhaiyya!” shouts a young man and the war cry is taken up by hundreds of other young men, climbing on top of another in their enthusiasm to record for posterity the scene in front on their mobile phones. UP’s policemen stand by, lackadaisically, as is their wont, believing foremost in the inevitability of fate instead of law & order.
It’s clear that Akhilesh has captured the imagination of these mostly poor and largely jobless youth for a variety of reasons — including the fact that he successfully broke away from his oppressive father — but most importantly because he is painting a picture of development UP hasn’t seen before.
Even Modi’s Vikas card has had to give way to imagined class warfare between the rich and the poor. In contrast, Rahul is almost like an afterthought, as if he’s a guest who must be made to feel welcome, never mind he’s sort of irrelevant.
Come 2019, when general elections take place, it is possible the unthinkable will happen. With Modi defending his throne, it may be that the chief opposition is a leader from a party other than the Congress. The ongoing battle in Uttar Pradesh has succeeded in shattering the illusion that the Congress is still in charge.
In this do-or-die battle for UP, it is equally clear that the Congress is riding on Akhilesh Yadav’s shoulders. Rahul may or may not like the idea of ceding the lead, but he has no alternative but to deal with the reality on the ground. Especially if that’s the price to pay for defeating the BJP on its own Lok Sabha turf.
(The writer is a senior journalist)
