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Journalism of Courage
After the ruling BJP took a lead over the opposition parties in kick-starting the party’s campaign for the upcoming urban local body polls in Uttar Pradesh, it received a minor hitch with more than a dozen state ministers visiting foreign countries to attend roadshows and meetings to draw foreign investment ahead of the UP Global Investors Summit. However, with the ministers now set to return, the BJP is all set to put its well-oiled campaign machinery to full throttle.
When the main opposition Samajwadi Party (SP) and its alliance partner, Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), were busy preparing for the Lok Sabha and Assembly bypolls last month, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath toured all the 17 municipal corporations, where elections are to be held, in one month. He addressed prabuddha jan sammelans (meetings of intellectuals), launched infrastructure projects for the cities and other local urban bodies of the districts, and urged people to ensure BJP’s victory for the “triple-engine government” – BJP at the Centre, at the State as well as in municipal bodies.
In these meetings, the CM talked about the “development done” in their municipal areas in the last five years. He also released books on the “achievements” of municipal corporations and promised more development in the coming years.
“The foreign tours of the ministers have hit the campaign plan, but once they return, their public meetings in local bodies of 58 districts will be planned. We will still be in a leading position because other parties have not yet launched any campaign on the ground yet,” said a BJP leader.
The party has deployed senior leaders and ministers in every local body to screen candidates and plan the election management as well as the campaign.
The main challenge of the BJP is to maintain its dominance in the urban local bodies.
In the 2017 urban local body polls, held a few months after the BJP came to power in the state, the party won 14 mayoral seats, 597 corporators’ seats in 16 municipal corporations, 70 chairperson posts and 923 ward members in Nagar Palika Parishads and 100 chairman posts and 664 members in Nagar Panchayats.
However, with BJP seats in the Assembly decreasing vis-a-vis an increase in the strength of the SP-RLD alliance in the UP Assembly after the state elections earlier this year, the ruling party is treading cautiously. It has constituted screening committees at three levels – district, regional unit and state unit – to shortlist candidates.
“Winnability, local social equation and share of candidate’s caste in local population are the three criteria on which the BJP will screen the candidates,” a BJP leader said.
“Applications from ticket seekers are being received. All the applications will be screened by a district committee that will forward a panel of names to the regional unit, which will further shortlist names and send a panel of 5 to 10 names for each seat to the state leadership. While candidates for mayors, chairpersons and corporators will be declared by the state unit, candidates for members of nagar palika and nagar panchayats will be declared at the level of the regional unit and district units. The screening process will begin soon,” said the leader.
The party has also appointed senior leaders as in-charge and coordinators for each local body. For example, the screening committee for mayor candidates comprises local BJP MLAs, MLCs, MPs, and the party functionaries hailing from the district.
The BJP has put a special focus on the Varanasi Municipal Corporation which falls in the Lok Sabha constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The party has made Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya the in-charge there.
Unlike in the 2017 civic polls when BJP had released a manifesto for the local body polls, the party has not planned any manifesto for the upcoming polls. “In 2017, we came to power in the state just a few months before the urban body polls. But now after five years, we have a lot of achievements of Yogi Adityanath government to tell the people,” said a party functionary.
Another challenge which the BJP is facing is from its allies who too are preparing to contest the urban local body polls.
When state BJP president Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary was recently asked about the distribution of seats with the allies in the civic polls, he replied, “There will be efforts to make consensus with the allies through dialogue. Also, it is a matter of central leadership, but dialogue will be held.”
Sources said that a preliminary discussion between senior leaders of BJP and both of its allies– Apna Dal (Sonelal) and Nishad Party — has taken place but there was no talks of seat distribution. Sources said that the BJP is not willing to give many seats to allies and it will prefer to field its own candidates on a majority of the seats, especially on mayoral seats.
However, a leader of Apna Dal(S) said, “We are making preparations in the areas of our influence like eastern and central UP. Apna Dal(S) will put up its demand only after seeing what BJP offers to us. Our workers want to contest the civic body elections.”
