To Pick or Not to Pick a CM Candidate: The BJP’s Big UP Dilemma

Contrary to speculation, will the BJP even pick a CM candidate for its Uttar Pradesh campaign?

For the BJP, it seems, declaring a Chief Minister candidate for Uttar Pradesh is not a question of if, but who and when.

The assumption that the BJP has to go to polls with a specified choice is because of their loss in Bihar against the Nitish-led Mahagatbandhan and their win in Assam where projecting Sarbananda Sonowal helped them come to power in the largest state in the North-East.

There is no natural choice for CM in the BJP. Internal surveys done by the party indicate that Varun Gandhi is the most popular choice for the post followed by Rajnath Singh, Yogi Adityanath, Kalraj Mishra and Smriti Irani, in that order.

But Varun Gandhi’s surname, his new found Left-of-centre politics, refusal to tow the hardline Hindutva line, occasional meetings with the other Gandhis and refusal to pay obeisance to the RSS and its UP shakhas make him the least preferred. And if his mother Maneka Gandhi’s public spat with Cabinet colleague Prakash Javadekar over the culling of nilgais was not enough, posters proclaiming “Varun Gandhi’s time has come” in Allahabad, have quashed any speculation that remained over him being picked.

With just a day for the BJP National Executive in Allahabad, massive hoardings with Varun Gandhi’s face along with Modi and Amit Shah have come up across the city. One such hoarding reads: “na apradh, na bhrashtachar, abki baar, bhajpa sarkar” (no crime, no corruption, this time BJP government).

Some other hoardings also have pictures of Sanjay Joshi and Shatrughan Sinha, who’ve openly criticised Modi in the past. But this open assertion by Varun Gandhi and his supporters is bound to be ineffective.

The choice of chief ministers of states like Haryana (Manohar Lal Khattar) and in Maharashtra (Devendra Fadnavis) indicates the BJP high-command would like a relatively low-profile leader whose strength may not necessarily come from a loyal or widespread political base.

Varun Gandhi is anything but low-profile, enjoys considerable support among the party cadre, and is likely to appeal to the electorate across caste lines. His candidature for the CM’s post is a non-starter.

But, a delay in announcing a leader is bound to be counter-productive to the BJP’s plans to consolidate its phenomenal 71/80 seat win in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

Take Delhi for example, where the BJP dithered on naming a CM candidate against Arvind Kejriwal. A last minute investment in Kiran Bedi led the party to one of its most humiliating defeats. Despite Amit Shah’s attempts to showcase Central schemes and project the Prime Minister as “UP wale”, it is clear that Modi alone will not win the caste-stratified state.

The BJP is running out of time, is going to face off against not one but two CM hopefuls – Mayawati and Akhilesh – has no clear contender of its own and is bound to create unwanted pre-poll resentment regardless of who it picks.

Why then, should the BJP pick a CM candidate? After all, it formed governments in Haryana and Jharkhand on its own, and in alliance in Maharashtra and J&K, without naming a prospective Chief Minister.

Speculation has now escalated that Rajnath Singh, a veteran UP politician, could play a prominent role in the party’s UP campaign, even without the party necessarily declaring him as its official CM candidate.

Amit Shah is wielding a double-edged sword in deciding whether he should pick a CM candidate for an election that will be a mid-term reckoning for Modi’s prime ministership.