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Lok Sabha election results 2019: Amit Shah’s master plan for Uttar Pradesh derails SP, BSP
After all, the party’s success in 2014 and 2017 had relied substantially on a split in the anti-BJP vote.
In the middle of last year, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president, Amit Shah, told an interlocutor he doubted that Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav would actually come together. But he quickly added, “Par agar aana hai toh aa jayein. Dekh lenge. Yeh bhajapa unse ladega.
(But if they have to come together, let them. We will see. This BJP will fight them.)”
Privately, the party’s state strategists were rattled. How could they beat the might of the two strongest regional leaders across the Hindi heartland? After all, the party’s success in 2014 and 2017 had relied substantially on a split in the anti-BJP vote.
But much before Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bhaujan Samaj Party (BSP) came together, the BJP hunkered down and crafted a strategy to take them on.
SOCIAL COALITION
The first element in the plan was to go back to the 60-40 formula. This was devised when Shah was the general secretary in charge of Uttar Pradesh (UP) back in 2014. Yadavs, Muslims and Jatavs together comprise around 40% of the electorate. The BJP had relied on mobilising the other 60% in both 2014 and 2017. This would include upper castes, all backward groups except Yadavs, and all Dalit groups except Jatavs. This time , the party would need to replicate this social coalition, but ensure their voters turned out in even higher numbers.
There was, however, a problem. The upper caste base looked shaky at the end of last year.
The BJP, hence, first got into damage control mode to get back its core vote. It announced a 10% reservation for the economically weaker sections of general castes; it reached out to the RSS, VHP and Hindu saints associated with the Ram Janmabhoomi movement to neutralise their anger. Finally, it raised the pitch on nationalism after the Balakot strikes. Slowly but surely, the upper castes returned to Modi.
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To the non-Yadav backward castes, the BJP machine spoke of the sunwai, the voice, they had gained in the present dispensation and reminded them of the days of Yadav domination. It made microalliances where necessary, like the one with Apna Dal’s Anupriya Patel or Nishad Party. The PM Kisaan scheme played a role in regenerating support of this segment of voters as well. A large segment of these caste groups — from agrarian backgrounds — were furious at the end of last year at the stray cattle menace. In January, the state government began to address the issue by constructing cow sheds. Many voters we met expressed their anger at the issue, but saw it as a state-specific concern rather than one which would affect national election voting patterns.
To non-Jatav Dalits, the party’s political message was of equity. Modi, in his campaign speeches, invoked Ambedkar and how the government had done more to honour him than any government in the past. National security may seem like an elite concern, but with both these social groups, the message of delivering a strong response to terror resonated. The BJP now had its messaging in place, targeted at all social groups.
“LABARTHI”
The party was aware that political messaging in itself was not enough. It needed to show to the constituencies which had supported it in the past – and possibly newer voters – that the government had delivered. This is where it constructed the idea of labarthis, or beneficiaries. The Modi government’s flagship achievement in its first term in office has been the delivery of rural assets: Housing, toilets, gas cylinders, and electrification. This has been supplemented with Ayushman Bharat. There has been special attention, with regard to all these schemes, in UP. The Adityanath government, monitored by the Prime Minister’s Office, was tasked with ensuring last mile delivery, a special challenge in UP.
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The schemes had their flaws and challenges. But in a remarkable instance of synergy between the party and the government, the BJP machine, from the middle of last year, began reaching out to individual beneficiaries directly. The BJP went to each village, and to each booth, to identify labarthis (data was available from government records). “We went so many times that anyone who got a toilet knew Modiji had given the toilet, anyone who got money for housing knew Modiji had given the house, anyone who got a cylinder knew Modiji had given the cylinder,” said a UP BJP leader. These government schemes, the party believes, constructed a vote of the poor for Modi, expanded the BJP’s class base.
NARENDRA MODI
But the micro-messaging needed a common thread. And that thread was the persona of Narendra Modi. As a party strategist, sitting in the BJP campaign office in Varanasi, told this writer last week, “Modi is fighting in each of the state’s 80 seats. Nothing else is relevant. It is all about one question: Do you want him as PM or not? And mark my words, his popularity has increased.”
Indeed, the Modi wave was palpable on the ground and we met voters who had one thing in common: They wanted Modi back.
The party used Modi strategically, getting him to address close to 30 rallies, especially in constituencies seen as vulnerable and where it was felt a Modi push would make all the difference.
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It was this mix of Narendra Modi’s appeal, a formidable party structure, a robust social coalition sustained by micro-messaging, government schemes, and the slogan of nationalism that delivered UP to the BJP yet again in the face of a formidable coalition. Modi, Shah, and the party’s UP team have rewritten the rules of the political game in the heartland.
