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Journalism of Courage
CHIEF MINISTER Yogi Adityanath has dug his heels in on having the last say in the bypolls to 10 Assembly seats due to be held in Uttar Pradesh. The CM, who has been facing the most heat over the BJP’s poor performance in the recent Lok Sabha elections in the state, had a meeting here Wednesday with RSS joint general secretary Arun Kumar.
Following the meeting, Adityanath was to reach Delhi Thursday evening for a party meeting and individual talks with Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP national president J P Nadda.
Sources said that while Arun Kumar wanted the meeting to be held at the BJP office, it was eventually held at Adityanath’s official residence.
Those close to Adityanath say he wants a free hand in the bypolls, from finalising the candidates and drafting the campaign strategy to picking up party leaders for assignments.
The CM’s demand for a free hand follows claims from his camp that his suggestions and inputs regarding assignments to grassroot workers, campaign strategy and selection of candidates were ignored during the Lok Sabha polls, which saw the BJP tally drop to 33, nearly half of 2019.
They say the CM had also advised against a long-drawn election in UP, held across all the seven phases, starting on April 19 and stretching to June 1 and the peak of summer.
Adityanath had raised these issues in an address to partymen at the BJP state working committee meeting in Lucknow on July 15, where he also talked of “overconfidence” costing the party.
The argument from the other side is that under Adityanath, the core principle that the organisation is bigger than the government has been ignored. At the July 15 meeting, Deputy CM and Adityanath rival Keshav Maurya claimed he was as helpless as any ordinary worker when it came to the running of the party.
Two days later, on July 17, Adityanath had held a meeting with ministers seen as close to him at his residence, from which Maurya, the second Deputy CM, Brajesh Pathak, as well as state president Bhupendra Chaudhary were absent. At the meeting, the CM gave the ministers present the responsibility of overseeing the bypolls in the 10 seats falling vacant.
The Central leadership had then stepped in and held separate meetings in Delhi with Adityanath, the two Deputy CMs and Chaudhary.
Adityanath responded with yet another meeting at his residence, on August 5, where both the Deputy CMs, Chaudhary and other senior office-bearers of the state BJP executive were present, as well as ministers who are seen as part of the CM’s inner circle.
Though Adityanath included his deputies and Chaudhary in the talks, he again made his intentions clear about largely keeping them out. While ministers given responsibilities of the seats earlier were asked to continue with their task, the state president and the Deputy CMs were asked to camp in the regions and monitor them.
Another sign of the CM’s resolve is the seats that he has personally taken the responsibility for — Milkipur in Ayodhya, and Katehri in Ambedkar Nagar, seen as the most critical of the 10.
While Milkipur fell vacant after sitting Samajwadi Party MLA Awadhesh Prasad pulled off arguably the biggest upset for the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls by winning from Faizabad (under which Ayodhya falls), in Katehri, SP MLA Lalji Verma defeated sitting MP and BJP candidate Ritesh Pandey, who had joined the BJP from the BSP just before the elections.
Since the beginning of this month, Adityanath has held several events at the two Assembly seats or nearby areas four times.
In case of the other Assembly seats as well, the CM has got ground reports ready from his trusted men, to zero in on candidates.
With unemployment a big concern among voters, and identified as a critical factor in the Lok Sabha polls, Adityanath has also been putting emphasis on rozgar melas (employment fairs). On Thursday, ahead of his trip to Delhi, the CM distributed loans and appointment letters at the Meerapur Assembly constituency in Muzaffarnagar, which is among those headed for a bypoll. Similar events were earlier held in Milkipur and Katehri constituencies.
Not only will another poll setback invite fresh attacks on Adityanath’s position, the SP and Congress too have smelled blood after the Lok Sabha elections, and have assigned senior leaders including sitting MPs to oversee the bypolls. With the caste issue very much a part of the narrative still, the two parties are confident of rallying together Muslims, OBCs and Dalits again for a winning combination.
Of the 10 Assembly seats that are to see bypolls, the BJP had won three in 2022 – Ghaziabad, Khair and Phulpur – while ally NISHAD Party and the RLD (now a BJP ally) had won two, Majhawan and Meerapur respectively. The SP had won five – Sisamau, Milkipur, Karhal, Katehri and Kundarki.
In the current Assembly, the BJP has 255 MLAs, its allies 20, the SP 111 and the Congress two seats.
Since the BJP finished with 33 seats in UP in the Lok Sabha polls, with the SP ahead of it at 37, Adityanath has been the target of barbs from own ranks as well as allies. The main allegation has been that the CM runs the government with powerful bureaucrats, and that their complaints went unheard.
