Election Tracker: Modi reaps UP for BJP, Gandhis set to lose glory

With 80 parliamentary seats, Uttar Pradesh has always remained the biggest pie of India’s political cake but a bite of it has never been easy. Intricate caste equations, religious tangles, development indices and political wizardry mark every inch of India’s politically most significant state. It may sound cliched, but the road to New Delhi is indeed via Lucknow and Narendra Modi knowing it to well is definitely making his imprint large in the state. “If you don’t win Uttar Pradesh this time then you realistically open up space for the third front or the federal front. It is pertinent that you optimise the seats where you have an existing footfall. The BJP already has enough footfall in the state and in that context Uttar Pradesh is of great significance to the party,” columnist and author Swapan Dasgupta told CNN-IBN during a panel discussion on the Lokniti IBN survey. [caption id=“attachment_1464905” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Survival at stake. PTI[/caption] Sharing a similar view, The Telegraph, national affairs editor, Manini Chatterjee felt that the image of BJP prime ministerial candidature Narendra Modi has been overhyped. “Uttar Pradesh is more important than Bihar for the BJP because the scope of increasing the number of seats in Uttar Pradesh is much larger than Bihar. However, it must be said that all kinds of manufacturing is going on to prop up Modi,” Chatterjee said. There is no question that BJP is using Modi’s image as a panacea to plug any loopholes in their campaign, particularly those concerning caste and community politics. “The upper caste votes are up for grabs for the BJP besides the OBC votes, because Modi himself is an OBC. The BJP is also adopting different campaign strategies in Uttar Pradesh. For instance, the Jats in western Uttar Pradesh are now moving towards the BJP from Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal,” CNN-IBN, national affairs editor, Bhupendra Chaubey said. “In eastern Uttar Pradesh, the party has brought in many outsiders. The real battles will be in eastern Uttar Pradesh in seats like Gorakhpur, Allahabad and Varanasi. Amit Shah has realised the importance of caste divisions in Uttar Pradesh and trying to polarise accordingly,” he said. Commenting on Shah’s campaign strategy, Dasgupta said, “There is an autnomous Modi factor that is working in Uttar Pradesh. Shah is a very good strategist. He has done what every politician should do.” The failure of the Congress to return to its halcyon days will also be documented with interest, and its star candidate Rahul Gandhi. “The biggest loser in this election in Uttar Pradesh is Rahul Gandhi. Following him is his mother Sonia Gandhi. If the president and vice-president of the party are performing so abysmally then it tells on the political failure of the Gandhi family. The big story is not the rout of the Congress but that the rout will be blamed on the Gandhis. Rahul invested a lot in Uttar Pradesh but he failed,” historian and author Ramachandra Guha said. The Week, special correspondent, Kallol Bhattacharjee also attempted to explain why Rahul failed to shine in Uttar Pradesh. “Rahul did not capitalise on the various schemes of the government to reach out to the people. He was not present as he should have been,” Bhattacharjee said. Although the Congress has been written off, the prospects of Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party and Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party are not brilliant either. “There is profound dissatisfaction with the SP and UPA goverments in the state and at the Centre respectively. But there is no logical reason that the benefit should be in favour of the BJP. There is no doubt that Modi has succeeded in lifting up BJP, because this support naturally should have gone to the BSP,” Dasgupta said. The bad handling of the Muzaffarnagar riots has certainly hurt the SP. “The Akhilesh Yadav government in Uttar Pradesh failed to secure the people,” Guha said. Oxus Investments, chairman, Surjit S Bhalla said, “The SP is losing support in the minority communiuty because of the Muzaffarnagar riots.” Chaubey felt that the SP is trying hard to woo the Muslim community and reinstate their faith in the party again. “Mulayam fighting from Azamgarh signals that he is relying on minority support and trying to get them to support the party again,” he said. However, The Telegraph national affairs editor was of the view that it is too early to call it an end of the regional forces in the state. “It is clear that the BJP is drawing votes form all three opponents. But this does not mean that Mulayam and Mayawati can be written off,” Chatterjee said.