New Delhi: With “Hindutva’ emerging as the main poll plank of the BJP, the Sangh Parivar is rooting for a hardliner to be the party’s face for the forthcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls and week-long celebrations are being planned at Ayodhya from June 10 to revive the Ram mandir issue.
If Yogi Adityanath was the face of the party’s “Love Jihad” before the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, attempts are being made to project Union minister Mahesh Sharma as the “Hindutva poster boy”.
At this juncture in UP’s caste cauldron the BJP is struggling to retain its Lok Sabha appeal. Riding the Modi wave during the 2014 general election, the BJP had bagged 73 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in UP.
“That’s not going to work anymore and we might have to fall back on our tried and tested formula of Hindutva,” a UP BJP leader said. A doctor by profession who runs a chain of hospitals, Mr Sharma has been a “blue-eyed boy” of the RSS.
On his personal website (http://www.drmaheshsharmabjp.com), the ]minister has been described as “a staunch follower of RSS since childhood”. His controversial remarks, starting from the Dadri lynching to the attacks on Africans, have apparently “impressed” local hardliners in UP. It may be recalled that after taking over as minister, Mr Sharma said on record that the “Centre was committed to building the Ram temple”.
