Yogi Adityanath returns to power, UP win marks a new chapter for BJP

A BJP worker breaks into a dance at the party headquarters in Lucknow, on Thursday. Pic/Dharmendra Jore

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has reaffirmed and consolidated his position in the Bharatiya Janata Party. The BJP workers here say he perfectly complements Prime Minister Narendra Modi's scheme of things, and fulfilled the PM's quest for winning the most populous state that would also send many Members of Parliament from UP to make yet another BJP government in New Delhi in 2024.

Yogi, who is fondly called Baba ji because he is also the head priest of Gorakhpur's Gorakhnath Math, may not be returning with a brutal number the BJP won in the UP Assembly five years ago. But under his leadership, the party has increased its vote share which itself is a marker that Yogi has vanquished the anti-incumbency factor that was fuelled by the Opposition charge regarding the mismanagement of COVID-19, communal polarisation and farmer issues. The last in the Opposition's arsenal was an oft-used EVM hacking allegation. Yogi is back gaining where the projections went against the BJP. For example, the western UP did not completely rule out the Yogi regime.

Illustration/Uday Mohite

Yogi's return is significant for his party's national ambitions and also a point to ponder over for the top leadership and the party's CMs who wish for the return. Yogi's feat is remarkable because he is the only CM in UP under whose leadership a party will be making back-to-back governments, for the first time in the past 37 years. The last was Congress's governments in 1980s. In another first of sorts, Yogi had the distinction of being a five-term youngest MP.

In 2017, Yogi wasn't the face of the BJP. Modi alone turned the tables on the Opposition then. To prevent in-house clashes, the PM sent Yogi, a Lok Sabha member, to run the country's most crucial state, which is a cobweb of tricky socio-politics, caste and communal equations. It sends the largest number of MPs and has the biggest, 403-member Assembly. In a strategic move, PM Modi shifted to UP's Varanasi Lok Sabha seat in 2014, vacating the other seat he won in Gujarat. Varanasi gave him a thumping mandate again in 2019, giving him a sort of dual citizenship of UP and his parent state. The state, which has given the maximum number of PMs, has been powered by a double engine of Modi and Yogi since 2017.

Trump card in UP, elsewhere

After taking over the CM's office, Yogi became the BJP's trump card not only in UP, but also where his image was expected to deliver. He has campaigned extensively in states other than UP to such an extent that the monk-turned-CM is seen as the BJP's polarising tool. Observers here say that while he delivered as a campaigner across the length and breadth of the Hindu majority land, a minimalist Yogi took the Centre's benefit schemes to maximum people like no other BJP-ruled state. He created more beneficiaries for the free ration scheme during the pandemic, worked out sops for women - mothers and their daughters - and for the benefit of small and marginal farmers, and ensured that newly created government jobs did not go to select caste groups. He touched every sphere of the rural population which constitutes a big chunk of UP's voters. He focused on infra development in association with Modi. With bhuk (hunger) being taken care of, Yogi won kudos for bulldozing the elements that threatened UP's law and order and stemmed the rot of corruption in administration and policing. Bulldozer has become so synonymous with Yogi ever since his targeted mission bore fruits. The imagery was used extensively in the campaign successfully.

BJP workers celebrate in Lucknow. Pic/Dharmendra Jore

He mixed the development plank with the Hindutva agenda, which became a difficult task in itself. The survival policy for the disowned cows has become one and resonated in the poll campaign as well. The BJP insiders say this was the biggest election to be held after the reformation of Jammu and Kashmir and the beginning of Ram Mandir construction in Ayodhya. Nobody belittles the Modi-Shah factor in winning the election, but Yogi too is not denied his contribution. Observers ask if Modi could alone do the trick the party had no reason to get defeated in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Rajasthan. They say that the deficiencies of the CMs in the lost state cannot be ignored. And in this backdrop, Yogi's achievement is far greater and significant in the scheme of BJP's national politics, the observers surmise.

SP lost but not a dead force

In the meantime, Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party complimented Yogi's tirade by taking on him. SP became a force to reckon with. It may not have realised its dream of winning over 300 seats, but inching closer to the halfway mark of its target is no mean achievement. Akhilesh made the UP elections bipolar, and together with BJP freed the state of the Congress that was trending only in two seats. Former CM Mayawati-led BSP has turned into a dead force, leading in just one seat. Others were holding forts in two seats. After a long time, the Lucknow Vidhan Sabha will have a single largest Opposition voicing louder.

‘Yogi has a lot of time'

More success invites more risks, they say. The victory has put Yogi in a league of leaders who could be Modi's replacement, if not in 2024, but later on. A surge in the intra-party tussle against their CM is expected, feel party insiders. But they say Yogi will turn 50 in June this year, and does not push too hard when it comes to personal ambitions. "He has a lot of time at hand and a vast agenda to fulfil," said one of the senior leaders.

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Yogi Adityanath's lead margin in Gorakhpur Urban constituency (till the time of going to press)