This Article is From Sep 17, 2014

The BJP's Big Mistakes in UP

(Rahul Shrivastava is Senior Editor, Political Affairs at NDTV)

Four months of the BJP government in Delhi has not brought "achchhe din" for the party in Uttar Pradesh.

I wouldn't call today's by-election results a referendum on Modi's rule or a reliable indicator of the politics of tomorrow.

But the results can be lessons in contemporary politics for parties.

The Samajwadi Party won eight of the 11 assembly seats. 10 of them had been vacated by the BJP - one was vacated by ally, Apna Dal - as its MLAs contested the Lok Sabha polls and became MPs. They had all won these assembly seats in 2012 - when there was no Modi factor, no Amit Shah steering the ship, and Uttar Pradesh was experiencing a strong Akhilesh Yadav wave.

One of the seats lost is Rohaniya, which is a part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's parliamentary constituency of Varanasi and contributed to his massive victory margin of over three lakh votes. The other seat lost is Charkhari, last held by union minister Uma Bharti. The party won in three towns - Noida, Lucknow and Saharanpur, none of which is in the rural belt.

"The people of UP have rejected communal forces," said an upbeat Akhilesh Yadav.

The BJP and its allies won 73 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in May because the strategy was airtight. The party projected Modi, who promoted only development. The closest the one-time poster boy of Hindutva came to associate with it was at a rally in Faizabad, with the Ram Mandir forming a backdrop. The BJP manifesto mentioned the temple pledge but on the 41st page of the 42-page document.

The BJP led by election-in-charge Amit Shah created scientific formulae for campaign, rallies and polling booth management.

There was a Hindutva subtext to the campaign - the BJP did use the Muzaffarnagar riots. It felicitated riot-accused BJP leaders. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its affiliates carried out door-to-door campaign on Hindutva issues.

The results of the national election stumped even the BJP. Since not a single Muslim candidate was elected from UP this time, it strengthened the assumption that polarization was working.

So for the by-elections, the BJP worked on leveraging the riots. It chose "love jihad" and forced conversions as its main poll issues. Yogi Adityanath, the fire-breathing, dressed-in-saffron MP from Gorakhpur was pitchforked into the limelight. In a polarized atmosphere, a polarizing agenda was led by a polarizing figure.

There was no Modi imprint on the by-election campaign. That was a mistake. Yes, Prime Ministers don't campaign in 10-11 seats for by-elections. But the BJP, which had avoided such a build-up ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, didn't stick to the elements for which people had voted for it.

The campaign ended up uniting the minority votes against the BJP and not the majority votes for it.

Young voters who fanatically chanted "Modi Modi" during rallies or road shows rejected the pre-Modi era style of campaign. He had created a connect with the youth and castes which traditionally voted for BJP's rivals with promises to resolve their 21st century concerns.

Modi's personal failure, perhaps, is that he allowed his party to return to campaign styles which promised just a divide. After all, didn't he - from the ramparts of the Red Fort during his first Independence Day address - ask for a moratorium on issues of caste and community in politics and social life?

The BJP, having misread the Lok Sabha results, didn't calibrate its campaign. The minority had nowhere to go but the Samajwadi Party. The Muslim vote didn't split.

The absence of the BSP, the low enthusiasm of BJP cadres and no effort like the one employed in the Lok Sabha elections to bring voters to booths led to a drop in polling percentage. If the average turnout in Lok Sabha polls was nearly 60 percent, it was down to 50 in the by-polls.

In the national election, Rajnath Singh as party president, Modi as the prime ministerial candidate, and Amit Shah as election manager had ensured that the BJP worked as one. But this time, it was different. Top leaders who have lost ground to the Modi-Shah duo were less enthusiastic. None of the top leaders campaigned in UP.

Rajnath Singh's son didn't get a ticket. Loyalists of the Home Minister have been grumbling over how the "UP Thakur" is being sidelined in the government. Varun Gandhi, the man with a famous surname was dropped recently from Amit Shah's core team.

One senior BJP leader says, "Varun Gandhi's ouster from the core team didn't go down well with a section of cadre which is looking forward to a more firebrand young leader compared to Yogi Adityanath." Murli Manohar Joshi, a Brahmin face, stands sidelined.

On the other hand, the SP had learnt its lessons. Mulayam Singh Yadav took charge of the campaign and planning. Remember, right in the middle of the campaign, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav could go on a foreign trip to Netherlands. Mulayam opted for a "slowdown" on the party's usual minority wooing to ensure that its traditional supporters - Yadavs and other OBCs - didn't feel marginalized.

SP won despite the Akhilesh government facing fire over riots, lawlessness, power crisis and poor drought relief. It won Nighasan and Talha - both areas are flood-hit and the state government is being blamed for inaction.

The BJP spokespersons are tying themselves in knots trying to distance Modi and Amit Shah from the verdict - perhaps lesser in intensity but similar in attempt to what their Congress counterparts were doing in May last for Rahul Gandhi. Forgetting that before this, the BJP lost by-polls in Uttarakhand and Bihar. And that, in coming elections its allies will raise doubts over Team Modi's winnability due to this loss.

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