Events & Issues
New Delhi, 10 February 2022
Battle For
States
BJP FACES
DISCONTENT?
By Sagarneel
Sinha
After being in power
at the Centre for over seven years, the Bharatiya Janata Party appears to be showing
signs of feeling the heat. For the saffron party, the Covid pandemic, which
refuses to ebb and reappears in phases, has been making the going difficult, as
it has hit people’s livelihood, particularly the poor. Add to this, there is a
rising discontent over soaring prices of essential commodities and unemployment,
the latter being a burning issue even before the pandemic.
Battling under these pressures,
the BJP gears up to face the voter in the five States of Uttar Pradesh,
Uttarakhand, Punjab, Manipur and Goa. Barring Punjab, the BJP is ruling inall the
others. After failing to gain power in West Bengal, where it went whole hog, it
can ill-afford to lose the biggest State, Uttar Pradesh, where there have been
rumblings within the party. At the same time, it doesn’t mean that retaining
Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur isn’t equally important for it, even though these are
much smaller States. If the BJP fails to retain at least two of these, if not
all, the message that the party’s dominance is weakening would gain more prominence.
In fact, the setback the party got in West Bengal, there is a growing perception
that Narendra Modi-led BJP is under challenge now.
In politics,
perceptions matter and the saffron party knows it too. To turn this perception
into a myth, the BJP has to retain Goa, Uttarakhand and Manipur along with the
most crucial Uttar Pradesh. Not only this, but the BJP also faces the challenge
to increase its presence in Punjab, a State where the party has always been a
negligible player and was dependent on the Akali Dal, which has severed its
ties with it in 2020.
That the BJP was
never a dominant force in this north Indian State was one of the main reasons
that the three farmer laws passed by the Modi government utterly failed to
convince the farmers, who were stoutly against these. As a result, this anger
finally resulted in the withdrawal of the laws. That’s why the BJP, which lacks
a credible face in the State, is now banking on former Congress leader and Chief
Minister Captain Amarinder Singh, who now leads a new party called Punjab Lok
Congress, to help make inroads.
Coming to Uttar
Pradesh, the most crucial state, the BJP is facing discontent, particularly for
the lapses of the Yogi Adityanath-led government during the second Covid wave.
In the Jat-Muslim dominated Western region of the State, where voting would be
held in the initial phases, the alliance of Jayant Choudhury-led Rashtriya Lok
Dal that has a presence within the Jat community with Akhilesh Yadav-led
Samajwadi Party, which has a stronghold among Muslims, has, undoubtedly,
emerged as the strong opposition against the BJP.
In this region, the
discontent is particularly due to Jat farmers’ dissatisfaction with Yogi
government’s sugarcane support prices. In the eastern region of the state,
where the voting would be held in the ending phases, the new look of the SP
under Akhilesh trying to penetrate into the non-Yadav OBCs by allying with
smaller parties is now threatening the prospects of the Yogi government. As a
result of the SP’s resurgence under Akhilesh, the BJP, apart from relying on
the Modi-Yogi combination, is also hoping that Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party
would at least help to divide the anti-BJP votes, particularly the Muslim
votes.
Notably, BSP, which
in this election has been relegated to a third player in its earlier
stronghold, has as of now given tickets to Muslims, more than the SP. Congress
is also trying to get back the votes of the Muslims, who were once its loyal
voters, by giving as many tickets as possible to the candidates from the
community.
True that the BJP is
still ahead in the race of Uttar Pradesh, as in recent years, the State has
turned into its stronghold, where it even fetched a 50%vote share in the 2019
Lok Sabha elections against the arithmetically strong SP-BSP-RLD alliance. The
question is why now the BJP is facing a challenge from the SP, whereas the
battle should be easier. The BJP can’t deny this bitter truth. Otherwise Union
Home Minister Amit Shah, also the NDA chairman, wouldn’t have clearly said that
the doors of NDA are open for the RLD. In fact, BJP is avoiding attacking
Jayant and his party directly.
In Uttar Pradesh, one
of the main reasons for discontent is said to be the centralisation of power by
Yogi. If at the Centre, the BJP is completely dependent on Modi, in Uttar
Pradesh, the party is mostly banking on Yogi. This dependence on the two
leaders by the party in the State also has its limits. Often MLAs and ministers
too, due to the myth that Modi and Yogi wave would help them sail through the
elections, haven’t done justice to their constituenciesor the people.As a
result, the BJP appears to be facing anti-incumbency at local levels. Almost
the same situation is being seen in other States, whether Goa, Uttarakhand or
Manipur, where the ruling party,failing to deliver, expects Modi to sail it through
these elections.
To overcome the heat,
it is being seen that a section of party leaders are bankingmore on
polarisation of votes, the hindutava agenda and catchy communal slogans. One
such slogan is 80% vs 20%, used by UP Chief Minister Yogi. The Muslim population
in the State is around 19% and it is widely believed they vote, generally,
against the BJP. Clearly, the 80% vs 20% is aimed at Hindu vs Muslim
polarisation. Such slogans may help reach out to the Hindu vote bank, but
overshadow the so-called development work being claimed to have been done
through welfare schemes for needy
sections, irrespective of caste and religion. The BJP has to ponder on this.
Although it would be wrong to say the communal card is being played out only by
the BJP. Recall, Akhilesh and SP, which has a sizeable Muslim vote bank, raised
the issue of Jinnah in these upcoming elections.
Despite the odds, the
BJP exuberates confidence that the voter would re-elect its governments and so also
in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. This confidence is mostly due to the lack of a
credible alternative against the BJP with the Opposition unable to come
together and the Congress failing to get back its fortunes. However, burning
issues such as growing unemployment and rising prices need to be addressed. The
brewing discontent cannot be over looked and over confidence can be fatal.
---INFA
(Copyright, India
News & Feature Alliance)
New Delhi
9 February 2022
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