2017 UP election: Amit Shah sets tone for BJP campaign, stresses on Mathura, Kairana

BJP president Amit Shah’s emphasis on the violence and land-grab incidents in Mathura, and the migration of the Hindus from Kairana are indicative of the fact that the party plans to use these incidents as twin emotive issues. Delivering his address at the BJP national executive meet held in Allahabad , Shah made clear the BJP’s intentions to mobilise public opinion in the party’s favour, and to take a prominent position against the Mulayam Singh Yadav-Akhilesh Yadav led Samajwadi Party (SP) government. The BJP’s idea is to pitch itself as the direct challenger to power vis-à-vis the Samajwadi Party in the upcoming 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, and to somehow push down Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) to third position. By bringing up the incidents in Mathura, the BJP president highlighted the illegal land-grab attempts in the state where – under the patronage of certain political powers – the miscreants were emboldened to the extent that they ignored the consequences before engaging in violent clashes with the police that led to the killing of 24 people, including two police officers  of the area – the SP and SHO. This helped the BJP to establish a narrative that the SP “protects the goons, land grabbers and gun runners”. [caption id=“attachment_2831110” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Senior BJP leader LK Advani during the party’s national executive meet in Allahabad on Sunday. PTI[/caption] The BJP recently launched a digital platform where an aggrieved person or a whistle-blower could send an email about any such land grab incident, following which they would respond by sending party workers to the location to pick up a fight on behalf of people of the area. That way, the party could keep their ground workers engaged, and begin the early mobilisation of public opinion. Kairana, on the other hand, presents a situation of a different kind. Located in close vicinity of Muzaffarnagar – where riots took place just a few years ago and whose wounds are still fresh – Kairana is a Muslim dominated area. There have been several reports in the media, both print and electronic, showing that a large scale migration of members of Hindu community has taken place – particularly those engaged in trade and commerce. The migration took place because of the perceived threat from other communities and the SP led state authorities’ inability to instill confidence in the community, that their lives and other interests would be protected. Look at how things have panned out since then. A fortnight ago, local MP Hukum Singh complained about the migration of Hindu residents from the area and the subsequent change in demographic profile. Following that, the BJP formed a nine-member fact finding committee led by none other than Hukum Singh himself. Then, the BJP national president stressed on the issue in his opening address at the national executive meeting in Allahabad. The political emotive import of the issue could not be missed. Several questions were directed towards Telecommunication and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad – who came to brief the media on Shah’s close door speech to the party delegates – on whether the party was going to adopt the tested and beaten path of trying to communally polarise the voters by raising Mathura and Kairana. The Minister’s answer was “no”. Quoting Shah, he said, “the violence and migration are cause of serious concern. This is to highlight how law and order has gone downhill and there is total lack governance by the Samajwadi Party.” Since the 3 June Jawahar Bagh incident in Mathura , where the Azad Bharat Vidhik Vaicharik Kranti Satyagrahi led by one Ram Vriksha Yadav – follower of late Baba Jai Gurudev – indulged in unprecedented violence, the BJP has actively mobilised its leaders and cadres to challenge the Samajwadi Party. All the state leaders assigned were fielded in particular areas of their influence, and organised several demonstrations and protest marches. Even the party’s senior most leader from the state, Home Minister Rajnath Singh, landed at Amroha to launch a blistering attack on the SP government. Amit Shah himself has visited parts of UP thrice since then, though the official plea is that the visits were in accordance with pre-scheduled programs. The BJP is doing the same with the Kairana migration issue. The BSP, on the other hand, don’t seem to be taking up these issues with any serious vigour. That could be because of the fact that in the BSP, nothing or nobody matters more than Mayawati herself. The BJP is also aggressively pitching to woo the BSP’s core social constituency – the Dalits. It may or may not make a dent in this politically significant social constituency, but it has surely placed itself in a direct fight with the Samajwadi Party, at least that’s how the popular perception is building up for now. BJP’s shrill pitch on Matura and Kairana are dovetailed with what it calls its strong area – development and the ‘supposed’ achievements of the Modi government. Shah asked all the party leaders and workers to resolve to sweat it out in the field to the best of their capacity, and to win the UP elections with full majority. He also spoke on the need to optimise the reach of social media to spread their messages. Via UP, he asked them to internalise another resolve to bring back BJP to power at the Centre in 2019, with an increased majority. The party steered clear of revealing its choice for the chief ministerial nominee in UP . “What to do and when to do, that’s the prerogative of the Party’s parliamentary board. At the moment our aim is build an effective strategy to secure full majority in the election”, Prasad said. The optimism and buoyancy in the air was tangible at the BJP national executive meet. After all, the BJP brass is fresh from the historic verdict in Assam , and the good show put up by the party in other states. It was almost natural on part of Amit Shah to vigorously push the party’s rank and file to take up 2017 as challenge – elections in five states including UP, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Gujarat. While elections in Goa and Gujarat will come up towards the end of 2017, the most populous and politically most significant state, UP, will go to the polls in the beginning of the year. That is precisely the reason why the BJP is holding its national executive meet – to build the required hype among people and to boost the morale of its cadre to take up the fight against the two mighty regional powers, Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party, with certain buoyancy and confidence. The fact that it also coincides with the party’s celebrations of Modi government’s two years in power, and the Prime Minister’s highly successful five-nation tour abroad is intended to give them the required talking points to take to their respective areas of influence. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mega public rally on Monday at the Parade Ground, will sound the poll bugle to officially set the campaign tone for the UP elections.