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Mega development push to Hindutva pitch, how UP is ‘UPyogi’ for BJP in poll season
UP, which is now the country’s second-largest economy and has 80 Lok Sabha seats, also holds the key to a ‘Modi-fied’ BJP’s attempt to score a hat-trick of wins at the centre. This is reason perhaps why a blend of religious outreach and economic makeover talks make for a ‘good poll narrative’ too
LUCKNOW In 28 days, the BJP has unveiled poll plans to project Hindutva in development embrace, an agenda that has special emphasis in Uttar Pradesh, where after the January 22 Ram temple inauguration in Ayodhya, the ‘double engine’ BJP government is set to showcase Monday’s groundbreaking ceremony 4.0 as proof of its commitment to ensure that ‘astha (belief) has ‘vikas (development)’ for company in the politically crucial state.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who spoke of “Ram aur Rashtra” (Ram and nation) at the Ayodhya event, came up with a ‘from red tape to red carpet’ coinage at GBC 4.0 to depict the changing UP landscape under chief minister Yogi Adityanath, whose government has wasted little time in linking the groundbreaking exercise as one that would lead to creation of 34 crore jobs.
The point holds importance as the opposition, particularly Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, currently in UP with his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, has consistently flagged issues of unemployment to build a case against BJP.
Not surprisingly then, the Adityanath government quickly came up with a catchy Hindi kicker - ‘rozgar chahiye, toh U.P. aaiye (come to U.P, if you want employment) - in a press release that sought to highlight the state’s new identity as “job creator”.
Earlier this month, after UP’s ‘biggest budget’ had been presented, Adityanath cited numbers stating that unemployment rate had been brought down from 19.2% in 2016-17 to 2.4 % at present, making it evident that the government looked at big-ticket events like Global Investors’ Summit (GIS) held last year and GBC 4.0 now to present before the electorate how despite global recession, UP was set be the “growth engine of the nation’s economy.”
UP, which is now the country’s second-largest economy and has 80 Lok Sabha seats, also holds the key to a ‘Modi-fied’ BJP’s attempt to score a hat-trick of wins at the centre. This is reason perhaps why a blend of religious outreach and economic makeover talks make for a ‘good poll narrative’ too.
Like in Ayodhya (temple event) and Lucknow (GBC 4.0), giving Modi company at another temple event at Sambhal - where Modi visited ahead of GBC - was chief minister Yogi Adityanath and for whom Modi had coined ‘UPYOGI (beneficial) term ahead of 2022 UP polls.
Here, as enthusiastic cadres raised Modi-Yogi chants, it became clear that BJP was again ready to pepper the state’s poll turf with its own ‘MY’ combine against its most powerful opponent in the state – the Samajwadi Party, whose Muslim-Yadav voter tilt had originally led to the ‘MY’ coinage. All three planks – religion, big-ticket projects, development and connecting with opposition names who are set to shift loyalties, thus will comprise the bulk of BJP’s strategy, even as the opposition, grappling with defections, struggles to get its act together.
Amethi and Rae Bareli, the latter being the lone Congress bastion in UP after the loss of Amethi in 2019, best captured the triple layered BJP strategy about how the groundbreaking 4.0 summed up the sentiment.
About 14,000 projects worth over ₹10 lakh crore were launched for the state, including many that were aimed at drawing investment for the makeover of the religious hot spots.
Union minister Smriti Irani, Lok Sabha MP from Amethi, a traditional Congress bastion that she won in Modi wave in 2019 Lok Sabha polls, has for instance, begun using the GBC 4.0 and its takeaways for her constituency among the people as a poll narrative.
“At the GBC, projects worth ₹6523 crore were received for Amethi alone. Mind you, these aren’t MoUs, but actual investment implementation plans, a first for Amethi,” Irani who is camping in Amethi for her four-day ‘Jan Samvad Vikas Yatra’ has already started saying.
“GBC 4.0 projects of course are certainly a great poll narrative because the PM has been talking of how in his third term India will be among the top three global economies,” said Prof Manuka Khanna of the political science department of Lucknow University.
