As the process of reviewing the dismal performance of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Uttar Pradesh gets going, the internal tussle in the party has come to the fore. Not only have six Union Ministers lost their seats in the State, but 16 Ministers in the State government have failed to hold on to their Assembly segments in a humdinger of a contest in which the party came down to 33 seats from 62 seats in 2019.
From the complacency and confusion caused by the slogan of “400 paar (more than 400)“, and the inability to arrest anti-incumbency against sitting MPs to bringing in outsiders in the last minute and not getting the caste calculus right, a series of grouses have surfaced that give some semblance to the conspiracy theories floated during the campaign, which suggested that the two ‘engines’ were on a collision course.
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Suddenly, meaning is being drawn into the party’s poor performance in the Varanasi division (Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s seat) and the better strike rate in Gorakhpur (Chief Minister Yogi Adityanth’s constituency). Sources are coming up with tales of complacency and indifference to describe why Mr. Modi’s margin of victory fell significantly. “With at least a dozen Ministers landing in the constituency, the local worker kept serving them instead of going to the ground,” a source said.
Sanjay Nishad, chairman of the Nirbal Indian Shoshit Hamara Aam Dal (NISHAD) party, an ally of the BJP that was entrusted with delivering the votes of boatmen communities, told reporters the NDA’s prospects in the State suffered as the slogan of “400 paar” caused complacency, and irresponsible statements were made by some candidates, including Lallu Singh and Arun Govil, on changing the Indian Constitution. Mr. Nishad’s son, Praveen Nishad, lost the Sant Kabir Nagar seat to the Samajwadi Party’s (SP) candidate from the Nishad community, even though the Muslim candidate of Bahujan Samaj Party (BJP) secured more than 150,000 votes.
Jaiveer Singh, Minister in the Yogi Adityanath government, who could not win in his Assembly segment, said that the Opposition had succeeded in misinterpreting the slogan of “400 paar”, creating confusion in the minds of Other Backward Classes (OBC) and Dalits that, if voted to power, the party would take away their quotas.
Meanwhile, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, who lost the Fatehpur seat, told a news agency that although she would continue to work for Fatehpur, she would identify those who had created obstacles in Mr. Modi’s development work.
Questions are also being raised about the efficacy of State party president Bhupinder Singh, who failed to show any magic in his home division of Moradabad, where the party lost five out of the six seats. The Jat leader with an organisational background was brought in to helm the party during the farmers’ agitation.
But the biggest shock for the party has come from the Moradabad seat, where a female Vaishya SP candidate defeated the BJP’s Thakur candidate in a constituency where the Muslim vote is decisive.
A senior leader in Muzaffarnagar, who is said to be close to Mr. Adityanath, alleged that the spark of Rajput discontentment that was lit in Muzaffarnagar and Kairana by Sanjeev Balyan and Pradeep Chaudhary’s casteist politics, spoiled the prospects of the party across the State. He accused the party of ignoring the signals sent by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in ticket distribution. “It resulted in the cold attitude of the cadre of the parent organisation in several seats,” the senior leader said.
Those who feel that the central leadership intervened a little too much in ticket distribution say that the party serenaded Jats and Gurjars in the west at the cost of other communities, which have a more widespread presence in the State. The argument that by bringing in the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), the party had saved Meerut and Fatehpur Sikri, and wrested Bijnor and Amroha, but could not find supporters in the east.
A section of cadres felt that, over the past few years, the BJP had brought in leaders from parties that didn’t have a clean image. “We could see that they are doing the same under-the-table business but we are expected to continue to walk the straight line in desh hith (national interest),” a senior party member from Firozabad said.
The second concern was more practical. A BJP worker from Rampur said that when the party brought in Ghanshyam Lodhi, he was expected to bring in the Muslim vote, considering he grew up under the tutelage of SP’s Azam Khan. “Now, when he goes to embrace a Muslim vote manager, whom we would have never allowed to come even close to the booth, it annoys the core worker. Lodhi-ji is sure that he could bring him around but most of us feel otherwise. It creates a sense that though we are being watched 24X7 by six different people, our understanding of the seat is being questioned by an outsider who, if he succeeds, will get the malai (profits),” a seasoned party worker said.
