BJP launches river yatras ahead of Uttar Pradesh assembly polls

With the river yatras, the BJP hopes to connect with the riverine community comprising OBCs and 22 influential subcastes like Nishads and Kashyaps

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has launched river yatras (river journeys) in the run-up to the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls . With this initiative, the party hopes to connect with the riverine community comprising OBCs and 22 influential sub-castes like Nishads and Kashyaps.

The BJP aims to make the riverine community aware of the steps taken for their welfare. (REPRESENTATIVE IMAGE )

Named “Kamal Nauka Rallies”, these boat rides would largely see members of fishermen and boatmen communities travelling by the BJP boats, talking about the party’s initiatives for the community that is politically dominant along the banks of the Ganga and the Yamuna.

Of the five river journeys, one each in Prayagraj and Kanpur across the Ganga ghats has already been taken out. Three more have been planned on Badaun’s Kachla river, across the Ganga in Varanasi and in Garh Mukteshwar in western UP.

“These yatras are to connect with the community that earns its living from the rivers. Over the years, the BJP government has launched several initiatives for this community and naturally, the idea is to make the community aware of these steps,” said UP BJP general secretary and party lawmaker Ashwini Tyagi.

“Depending on the ghats, we plan the number of boats. So, for instance Varanasi boat journeys would be bigger than the ones in Badaun’s Kachla, which has only one ghat,” he added.

Before the river journeys, boats and river are worshipped and speeches made with party flags fluttering in the background.

The BJP has inked a pre-poll pact with the Nishad party, whose chief Sanjay Nishad had only recently been made a member of the legislative assembly (MLC) in Uttar Pradesh. Nishad’s son Pravin Kumar Nishad is currently a Lok Sabha MP from Sant Kabir Nagar on the BJP ticket. He had won the 2018 Lok Sabha by-poll from Gorakhpur as a joint Samajwadi Party (SP)-Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate. This time, the Nishad party is aiming to substantially improve its political standing.

The community’s influence is spread across Purvanchal stretching from Jaunpur to Gorakhpur and from Varanasi to Ballia and beyond. To woo the community, the BJP government has begun work on installation of a 51-feet (15.54 metre) statue in which Lord Ram will be seen hugging Nishadraj (head of the riverine community), who, according to an ancient belief, had helped Lord Ram cross the river during his period in exile.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was the first to launch a river journey to connect with the riverine community, while the main opposition Samajwadi Party (SP) had got former party MP Phoolan Devi’s mother Mula Devi to attend SP chief Akhilesh Yadav’s rally in Kalpi, Jalaun. The SP has also announced a statue in memory of Phoolan Devi.

BJP Rajya Sabha MP Jai Prakash Nishad, who is the convener of the fishermen cell or the machuara prakosth, said the community of fishermen and boatmen have mostly been exploited with no major political party actually giving them any space until the BJP launched a series of initiatives for the community.

Currently, Nishad party leader Sanjay Nishad has been pushing that the riverine community be moved from OBC to the Scheduled Caste (SC) list.