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Journalism of Courage
THE BJP is confident of having set the stage for a 2024 return at the Centre with its comprehensive win in the win in the politically most crucial state of Uttar Pradesh in 2022. However, the Opposition too is fancying a fresh wind, with the Samajwadi Party getting its house in order, settling the family rift, and stitching up some fruitful alliances – leaving all eyes on the urban local body elections that are due soon.
The Allahabad High Court order seeking that the polls be held immediately, without an OBC quota that the BJP government had provisioned for, has skewed the Yogi Adityanath regime’s plans. With the government resolving to wait out and push for a quota, given the significance of the OBC vote, the polls might be delayed.
The Congress, pushed to the margins in UP, will hope for a boost from its ambitious Bharat Jodo Yatra, while the SP is banking on its alliance with the RLD to hold fast and taking heart from its recent bypoll success. Smaller, caste-based parties will hope that given the mathematics that each of the fronts will try ahead of polls, they will continue to stay relevant. Expect some tough bargaining from the likes of the NISHAD Party and Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party.
The BSP, which could not win a single seat in the recent Assembly elections, in a remarkable fall for the party, also appears to have shed its somnolence. Mayawati has been personally holding district-level review meetings and selecting candidates for urban local body polls.
With all questions regarding his leadership settled, Chief Minister Adityanath has lined up a series of programmes to add a “development” push to his “faith” appeal. 2023 will see him attending the World Economic Forum meeting at Davos, Switzerland, becoming the first UP CM to do so. The state is currently on a drive to showcase a “new Uttar Pradesh”, ahead of a Global Investors’ Summit scheduled for February 2023. As part of the exercise, UP ministers are heading out to other states to sell the state’s investment potential.
True to the BJP style of functioning, where every poll is fought with full effort, Adityanath has not lost sight of the local body polls in the midst of this. He has been touring the state, inaugurating projects and laying foundation stones at the district level, while asking the public to “choose wisely” in the elections.
Amidst this grand show, and the series of events planned for India’s G20 presidency, Rahul Gandhi will be hoping to make a re-entry via Bharat Jodo Yatra in the state that saw his ignominious defeat to Smriti Irani in Amethi. Party sources say Rahul, who won from Wayanad in Kerala to stay on as MP, will very much contest from Amethi again in 2024.
The fight won’t be any easier, with Union minister Irani nurturing Amethi carefully and Rahul largely staying away from UP since the 2019 loss, leaving the state to sister and the Congress’s UP in-charge Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.
The Congress is also in the process of reorganisation of its party structure, appointing a new state chief and zonal presidents. However, the one crucial decision ahead for the party, as per leaders, is which of the Gandhi siblings will enter the ring to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi come 2024, given that he is likely to again choose Varanasi as his seat.
And finally, 2023 will close with another high for the BJP, with the inauguration of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya on the cards by the end of the year. There would perhaps be no better boost for the party and PM Modi, who laid the foundation stone of the temple, than that ahead of the 2024 general elections.
