Bhuvan Bhaskar
Bharatiya Janata Party has created history in Uttar Pradesh. Under the leadership of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, the party created many records with this victory, which have been discussed all around. But now this election is over and the need of the hour is to analyze the message of this election ahead of the celebration of victory. The election of Uttar Pradesh was being told as a semi-final, so obviously the victory of BJP in this semi-final has set the stage for the final i.e. for 2024.
What were the issues of BJP overall in Uttar Pradesh elections? Certainly development and law and order were at the top of the list. But the complete introduction and personality of Yogi Adityanath was a symbol of Hindu nationalism in itself. Along with this, the attitude of the government and administration towards the construction of Ram temple, Kashi Vishwanath Corridor, lighting of millions of lamps in Ayodhya on the occasion of Vijayadashami, Kumbh of Prayag and Kanwar Yatra of Haridwar and openly talking about ‘liberating’ Krishna Janmabhoomi in Mathura. All in all, it can be said that Uttar Pradesh has acted as a political laboratory for the BJP. Gujarat was earlier referred to as the ‘Hindutva laboratory’ for the BJP. But now more than Gujarat it can be said for Uttar Pradesh.
If said, Uttar Pradesh deserves more than Gujarat as the laboratory of new politics with Hindutva influence. Because the two biggest challenges facing the BJP’s politics of Hindu nationalism are both in Uttar Pradesh in their most effective form. The first challenge in this is casteism and the second is the economic backwardness of the society. Hindu nationalism has to deal with both these challenges to become the mainstream of politics and Yogi Adityanath’s resounding victory in Uttar Pradesh has established BJP’s victory over both these challenges.
It is very important to understand these two things because out of these, BJP’s election strategy for 2024 will be ready. In the 2017 elections in Uttar Pradesh, 312 seats were won with 39.67% of the vote. The magnitude of BJP’s victory in the year 2022 can be understood from the fact that even though the seats may have reduced by 60, the vote share has increased by almost 2% to 44.34%. This is no ordinary achievement. It is an extraordinary event for a party to increase its vote share by 2% after running the government for five years.
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It was an even tougher challenge for the BJP, as the Muslim electorate in Uttar Pradesh is around 20%. There are 57 seats in the assembly where winning or losing any voter depends on the attitude of Muslim voters. And in this election, Muslim voters displayed extraordinary polarization. To such an extent that the hardcore Muslim party of Hyderabad, AIMIM did not get more than 5000 votes in any seat in the whole of Uttar Pradesh. Overall, Asaduddin Owaisi’s party got 0.47% of the votes in all 403 seats.
Apart from the Muslims, the vote of Yadavs remained almost outright for the Samajwadi Party. One can get an idea of the polarization of votes towards the Samajwadi Party from the fact that its vote share has increased by 10% in the last 5 years. That is why it is understandable that despite BJP’s vote share increase of 2%, its seats decreased by about 60, while Samajwadi Party’s 10% increase in its vote share increased its seats by about 75 seats. But the important thing is not. What is important is that apart from Yadavs, every backward caste contributed completely to the BJP’s vote. Among the Dalits, only the Jatav vote remained with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), while all other Dalit castes went with the BJP. That is, the Hindutva politics of the BJP broke the circle of castes and succeeded in getting the votes of all the Varnas – Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras. This is BJP’s first success in making Uttar Pradesh a ‘laboratory of Hindu nationalist politics’.
The second success, which the BJP has achieved, has certainly come because of the work of the Narendra Modi government at the Centre. Since coming to power in May 2014, the Modi government has launched dozens of such development schemes targeting that section of the society, which is called the last line person of the society. From delivering LPG cylinders to providing electricity, tap water and ration to homes, whatever schemes were started by the Center, the Uttar Pradesh government got them implemented on the ground with full capacity. Dozens of such videos surfaced in the Uttar Pradesh elections, in which the poor living in slums, villages or other remote areas have spoken of supporting Modi-Yogi, saying that they will get full benefits of the central schemes.
The Yogi government of the state announced the construction of four new expressways and people saw the work being done on them at lightning speed. The development plans of the previous governments, which were incomplete for decades, were completed by the Yogi government during its tenure and dedicated to the people. All these things together strongly negated the propaganda spread by an influential section of the media that Hindutva governments cannot do development work.
Although Modi had already written many development scripts in Gujarat in many cases, but it is to be noted that even before Modi, Gujarat was a developed state. That is, Modi started with a high base. On the other hand, Uttar Pradesh used to be a part of the infamous BIMARU state, where Mulayam Yadav’s family politics and hundreds of allegations of corruption dominated, on the other hand Mayawati’s flint politics, where even crores of rupees were openly donated to get party tickets. was taken.
The Yogi government, along with development-oriented politics, put such a credible face of Hindutva politics in front of the people by reining in all the mafia, the result of which is clearly visible on the results of the 2022 assembly elections. This is the national message of the laboratory of Uttar Pradesh. The time to come in the politics of the country will see a more articulate face of Hindu politics, but that face will be decorated with development. And this development will not be measured only by the scale of airports, gleaming roads and glitzy malls, but the criterion of this will be the brightness of the faces of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged people standing in the last line of the society.
Overall, it will not be an exaggeration to say that the election results of Uttar Pradesh will bring a new twist in the politics of the country, on the other side of which stands a grand and prosperous India.
(The author is an expert on economic and political matters)
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