New Delhi/Lucknow: Sensing that the situation is tough in western Uttar Pradesh, the BJP strategists are looking at “measured and controlled” polarisation of vote bank.
Some of the Hindutva hawks and saffron candidates in western UP like Sangeet Som, Suresh Rana among others, who have been accused of giving hate speeches, have not been pulled up by the party leadesrhip. The Ram Mandir issue has also been kept alive to signal to the Hindutva vote bank in western UP, which had witnessed communal riots in 2013.
Playing the religious card, party’s firebrand leader Yogi Adityanath on Saturday said the alleged exodus of Hindus from Kairana and ‘love jihad’ were important issues for the party.
Saffron poll strategists, it was learnt, are hoping that polarisation in this region could boost up party’s numbers as the region has nearly 100 Assembly constituencies.
Jats and Muslims are two dominant vote-banks here and polarisation could impact the poll prospects of both the BJP and SP-Congress combine. Though SP-Congress seems to be the current favourite of the Muslim votebank, polarisation of Hindu votebank would help the BJP.
BJP in UP is trying to get rid of ‘scam’, says Modi
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said that the BJP was fighting in Uttar Pradesh to get rid of SCAM - Samajwadi, Congress, Akhilesh, Mayawati. “Do these people care about the future of UP? This election is BJP’s fight against scams. By scam I mean, S- Samajwadi (Party) , C - Congress, A - Akhilesh (Yadav), M - Mayawati. Do you want SCAM or BJP? SCAM or UP’s progress?” he asked while addressing a rally in Meerut on Saturday.
The Prime Minister came down heavily on the Samajwadi-Congress alliance and said that the Congress had taken out Rath yatras and had abused the Samajwadis. They claimed that the Samajwadis had destroyed Uttar Pradesh.
“But what happened overnight? The two parties are now walking hand-in-hand and are even hugging each other saying ‘save me’, save me’. People who cannot save themselves, how can they be expected to save Uttar Pradesh?” he asked.
