For BJP, the UP Bypolls Are Much More Than Just a Head-to-head Contest With SP

The Congress, humbled by its dismal performance in Haryana, has wisely decided to sit out the by-polls.

File image of UP CM Yogi Adityanath.

(Photo: PTI)

Next week’s assembly bypolls in nine constituencies of Uttar Pradesh have acquired a political consequence far greater than they would have under normal circumstances. They are a crucial test for the BJP which took a terrible beating in the recent Lok Sabha polls in the country’s politically most significant and populous state.

It is imperative, both for the BJP high command in Delhi and the Yogi Adityanath state government in Lucknow to make a resounding comeback to demonstrate that the party has managed to mend the cracks that had so palpably appeared in its electoral bastion.

The nervousness of the BJP about the bypolls is underscored by their last-minute postponement (by a week) by the Election Commission, a move that has been criticised by Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav. The EC had already indefinitely postponed, for flimsy reasons, the scheduled bypoll in Milkhipur located in the Ayodhya region where the BJP was humiliated in the general elections by the SP.

For the INDIA bloc, led by the SP in the state, the outcome of these polls will prove whether it has managed to maintain the momentum of the national elections that reduced the BJP to just 33 out of 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state. For Akhilesh, a positive result will no doubt lay the launching pad for the state assembly polls two years later.

The other political party that claims to have some skin in the game is the once mighty BSP, now shrunk beyond recognition after repeated electoral losses over a decade. Desperate to stay relevant in the state, the BSP and its supremo Mayawati, who in their heyday shunned bypolls as politically irrelevant, are contesting all the nine seats this time.

For the BJP, the bypolls are much more than a head-to-head contest with the SP. It is a litmus test for its ability to contain the inner dissensions and the barely veiled dissonance between the central party high command and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

The bypolls will prove whether these fractured relationships, out of sheer political survival instinct, have been bandaged (at least temporarily) or repaired.

The surprise electoral triumph by the BJP in Haryana last month, when all seemed to be lost, has somewhat bolstered the morale of the party after being down in the dumps after the Lok Sabha results. However, BJP strategists are acutely aware of the pivotal role that Uttar Pradesh plays in the political fortunes of the party.

There have been a series of meetings both within the BJP and with the RSS, including an intensive closed-door discussion between RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in the last week of October.

As for the Opposition, the Congress party, humbled by its dismal performance in Haryana, has wisely decided to sit out the bypolls in UP, although it did demand as many as three out of the nine seats earlier on. Having extracted unconditional support from the Congress party, it is now left to Akhilesh Yadav to prove whether his new social alliance of Pichhade Dalit Alpsankhyak (PDA) representing backward castes, Dalits and minorities, can once again give him electoral benefits.

Significantly, the SP fighting on its own has decided to field four Muslims, two Dalits, two lower backward castes, and one Yadav for the bypolls. Among the two Dalits, Singh Raj Jatav is from a non-reserved seat in Ghaziabad, a clear gesture towards Dalits, particularly the Jatavs, a community that has previously been hostile to the Samajwadi Party.

On the other hand, while the BJP has persisted in wooing other backward castes, knowing that the upper caste vote was in the bag, the largest chunk of candidates standing for the BSP belong to the upper castes, i.e., four candidates.

Not surprisingly, the entire bypoll exercise is marked by overt caste and community divisions. The BJP continues to play the anti-Muslim card even as it extends its outreach to lower castes and Dalits. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has coined the phrase batenge to katenge (divided we fall) in the aftermath of the BJP’s poor Lok Sabha performance in UP.

Akhilesh Yadav has been quick to respond and coined his party's election slogan as judenge to jitenge (united we win), which he and the rest of the Opposition have projected as a positive political message compared to the negative undertones of the BJP. Another SP slogan declared, na batenge, na katenge, PDA ke sang rahenge (won't get divided, won't fall, will stay on with the PDA). Not to be left behind, the BSP has come out with its own slogan, BSP se judenge toh aage badhenge, surakshit rahenge (unite with the BSP and move forward, stay secure).

Organisationally, the BJP looks in a better place than before the Lok Sabha polls, but internal party battles go on. Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Maurya, close to the central party high command, recently rubbished Yogi Adityanath’s batenge to katenge slogan, given the hullabaloo it has caused.

"We will not let the Opposition succeed with its dirty game of calling batenge toh katenge a slogan of the BJP. Our party's slogan is the one coined by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which is sabka saath, sabka vikas. Batenge toh katenge was part of a speech, it is not the party's slogan," Maurya assertively declared in an interview.

(The writer is a Delhi-based senior journalist and the author of ‘Behenji: A Political Biography of Mayawati’. This is an opinion piece. The views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)