Once again the silliest of silly seasons is approaching us at breakneck speed sparking all sorts of wonderful shenanigans in political parties across the land.
Much has been made of the Advani resignation and subsequent reintegration into the BJP as things come to a head between him and his protégé, Narendra Modi.
Modi, on the other hand, has been harping on about his “development” model that can help India rise of the morass it finds itself in thanks to an almost complete paralysis of policy making, implementation and in many cases, governance. But most people reserved their mirth at his claim of having rescued, single handedly, 15,000 Gujarati’s from the recent floods that devastated Uttarakhand and have taken a horrific toll on life and property in the state.
Kerala is doing a magnificent job in ensuring that sex scandals involving its legislators keep us glued to our seats for more salacious and sensational scoops.
Mamata Di in West Bengal is, well, Mamata Di.
But, and this is the kicker right here – what seems to have been swept under the carpet is the appointment of Amit Shah as the man to lead the BJP in the National Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh. To the uninitiated, Amit Shah is Modi’s right hand, his master strategist and point man in negotiations of all sorts (the murkier, the better). Accused in numerous cases of Murder and in the Godhra riots, Amit Shah became enough of a liability for Modi to deny him a ministerial berth in his new cabinet (in Gujarat) and pack him off to UP.
The BJP has not won in UP for decades now, and its traditional voter base has been fragmented along various lines in the state. A bigger concern is the biradari and jaati (brotherhood/kinship and caste) vote calculations, which mean the largest groups now vote for regional parties that represent them and their communities.
The Bahujan Samajwadi Party, ruled by its formidable leader, Mayawati, has the scheduled caste, or Dalit, vote sewn up tight and well. And this time they have announced an unprecedented number of Brahmin (upper caste) candidates in an effort to absorb more votes into their kitty.
The Samajwadi Party, currently running the state, and helmed by former wrestler turned political strongman, Mulayam Singh Yadav, on the other hand have the OBC (Other Backward Communities) votes in their pockets. But since they came into power, UP has fast deteriorated into the Gunda raaj (Jungle Rule) that the SP has always been famous for, and anti-incumbency sentiment is setting in fast. It is for this reason Mulayam Singh, who has appropriated the title “neta ji” (an honorific title given to senior statesmen, most memorably Jawaharlal Nehru) wants, and is trying to make moves for elections to be held at the earliest.
And then there’s the Congress. Routed in the last UP elections so completely that areas known to always vote for the Gandhi-Nehru combine (both Rahul and his mother were elected here, and other Nehru Gandhi’s before them), deserted them, leaving the loyal courtiers of the Congress Durbar to make hilarious excuses for the failure of the party, in an election they had promised would be won with an overwhelming mandate due to Rahul’s leadership. So much for that.
Into all this we add in the Muslim votes. A swing vote in many states in India, UP has been the one place they made definitive differences in electoral outcomes. And it still remains hard to see the Muslim community vote for the BJP en masse, despite the blitzkrieg of propaganda from the BJP talking about a Minority Manifesto and certain clerics declaring their love for NaMo (Narandra Modi, see what he did there?).
So why would Amit Shah, a deeply polarising figure, and NaMo, an even more divisive person within the RSS and BJP senior members, even venture out to UP?
Two factors come into play.
The first is that UP is the most politically significant state in India with 85 out of a total of 543 National Assembly seats. Theoretically, 272 seats are the number a party needs to form government on its own. If they can bag, like NaMo hopes, over 40 seats in UP, that puts the BJP in pole position and having to rely less on victories in other states.
Remember, the BJP is only in power 3 states on its own, and in power with a as junior member of the coalition in 2 others. Not exactly reassuring, which is why it makes sense to try and bag as many seats as you can from UP hoping that can add momentum to the BJP.
The second is that a lot has been, and will be said about Amit Shah, but the one thing nobody will ever deride is his organisational capabilities from booth level upwards. He knows how to get the rank and file onside and rallying for a BJP win. And NaMo has been the target of a fair few barbs almost daring him to move out of his Gujarat stronghold and contest an election outside his own state in order to prove his pan-India credentials. NaMo, it seems, has taken the bait.
There is however another intriguing possibility. In the hype, hoopla and clamouring to present NaMo as a consensus candidate and a secular one at that (stop sniggering), NaMo has decided to contest from Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s old assembly seat in the Uttar Pradesh capital, Lucknow. Vajpayee, considered one of India’s true national leaders was seen as the soft face of Hindutva and respected across party lines. NaMo it seems, may be trying to appropriate Vajpayee’s persona by taking on comers from Vajapyee’s old constituency.
Symbolism, sensationalism, secularism and a plethora of other ‘isms’ are about to unleashed as India heads to the polls for the 16th time in our history. Strap on your seat belts.
