The BJP is in a hurry to change the political status quo and emerge as the hegemonic party across India, as the Congress used to be a quarter century ago. Although constructed on a weak vote percentage — barely 30 per cent — the massive number of seats it won in the last Lok Sabha election constitutes a decent enough springboard to make its presence felt in the states, and UP is a test that must be passed after Bihar and Delhi were flunked. The urgency was evident at the meeting of the party’s national executive in Allahabad recently, held with a view to mobilise political and organisational resources to prepare for the Assembly election early 2017.
Potential organisational dissension was nipped in the bud. Some had sought to marginalise and not invite old-guard leader Murli Manohar Joshi, the MP from Kanpur and a former BJP president. But in the end Dr Joshi was not only accommodated but publicly mentioned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his speech, although the two do not enjoy a great equation.
The BJP cannot risk a social division working against it in the upper caste ranks. The party has a massive task on its hands — to scale the wall from a mere 41 to 200 plus seats in the state legislature to be able to form government. With the aid of minor allies, the saffron party hopes to win over the non-Yadav OBCs and a section of the dalits, who generally go with BSP leader Mayavati.
Predictably, the ruling Samajwadi Party of Mulayam Singh, as well as BSP, were targeted by Mr Modi and party president Amit Shah, as BJP is seeking to charge to the front from way behind (although the party won a record number of seats in UP for the Lok Sabha in 2014). It is interesting that the BSP was also targeted for supposedly being chummy with Congress.
Once again, a division of labour was on view. While the PM promised the moon in hard-selling the development agenda, giving his own government at the Centre “first class” marks, Mr Shah openly promoted the communal agenda by fanning the rumour — which media reports have shown to be utterly false — of Hindus migrating from Kairana.
The Muzaffarnagar communal riots had set the tone for the BJP’s campaign in the last Lok Sabha election in UP, and the same area is being made the centre of another communal push. As BJP workers are going around “investigating” the so-called Hindu “migration”, chances of vigilante actions promoted by saffron mobs cannot be ruled out. The administration must look sharp, and political and social morality need to be underlined.
