The master strategist behind the BJP's successive election wins, Union Home Minister and former party president Amit Shah has been involved every step of the way in the campaign for the five states, particularly UP. Credited with fashioning the BJP's sweep last time, he took charge amidst indications of some bumps in the first phase. AMIT SHAH speaks to The Indian Express on why he is confident of a repeat win in UP, Centre-state relations, leaders leaving the party, and voter concerns like jobs. IE: In 2017, when you led the BJP's campaign in Uttar Pradesh, the message was Prime Minister Narendra Modi against the incumbent Akhilesh Yadav. Today, it’s five years of Yogi Adityanath, while Akhilesh Yadav is the challenger. How different is that for you? Amit Shah: This time, our strength has improved. Modiji is still there. Along with him, we have what the Yogi government has done for Uttar Pradesh in the last five years. There are many more advantages for the BJP. So, I consider ourselves stronger. IE: Last October, in your first UP campaign speech, you said if people wanted Narendra Modi to return as Prime Minister in 2024, they should ensure Yogi Adityanath wins in 2022. Why this link? Amit Shah: I did not say that. What I said was the route to Delhi is via Lucknow. Since Uttar Pradesh has 80 seats in the Lok Sabha, it’s very important for the BJP to be in power in Uttar Pradesh to return to power in 2024. If anyone wants to form a government with full majority at the Centre, it cannot be without Uttar Pradesh's mandate. IE: On the ground, we heard about a certain disconnect between the government in UP and the party organisation. We hear complaints of bureaucrats being too powerful, influential. What were the challenges when you took charge of the campaign? Amit Shah: There was no challenge at all. What you call a difference of opinion, I call an illusion. In reality, there were no difficulties. When senior party leaders come in, such illusions are cleared. Humara lakhsya tha Uttar Pradesh mein aparadikaran rajneeti rokna, Uttar Pradesh ka administration ka rajneetikaran rokna. Jab hamara lakshya hota hai, toh bureaucrat-driven kya hota hai (Our goal was to end the criminalisation of politics and the politicisation of the administration. When it was our aim that Uttar Pradesh administration should not be politicised, what is this bureaucrat-driven)? If there are some shortcomings, we can sit together and clear them. IE: There are MLAs who talk about the gap between the government and the workers. Amit Shah: It’s quite natural. Our party is not undemocratic and we have freedom of expression, but our party is a disciplined party too. Once the election started, everyone fell within the lines of discipline. Today, from the west to Sonbhadra via Ghaziabad, you will see the entire BJP cadre working towards victory. Once the election is over in one phase, they move to the next. IE: The BJP's campaign line is 'Jaati dharm se uth kar badaya hai samman, sabse pehle garib kalyan'. Is it because there are cracks in the consolidated OBC vote? Amit Shah: Since 2014, Modiji has this motto: Sabka Saath, Sabka Vishwas. We still go with the same slogan, the language can be different. No caste group has drifted away from us. Some leaders have walked away. In Uttar Pradesh, no one can claim ownership of votes of any particular community. Every voter decides individually. IE: Were you surprised when some senior leaders walked away in January? Amit Shah: You take any election, it’s not uncommon that some leaders leave a party to join another party. To me, if someone is not happy within a party, leaving that to join another before seeking the mandate again, is democratic. IE: Did their exit make you change any strategy? Amit Shah: Not at all. Yes, the candidate could have been changed in some constituencies after the exit of some. But it could also be that candidates would have been changed even if they had remained. This, perhaps, was the reason they left. IE: Your refrain is Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas. In 2017 and now, why has the BJP not fielded any Muslim candidate? Amit Shah: Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas is not a political slogan, it’s the policy of this government. It fails if a Muslim family, which deserves to get free ration, does not get it; if it does not get free gas connection, if it does not get a house under Awas Yojana despite being eligible for it. Or, when a Hindu residential locality gets electricity connection and the Muslim family does not get it. If this happens, the slogan becomes hollow. I can tell you with confidence – The Indian Express team is good at investigating, you do a search of entire Uttar Pradesh – you will find that these schemes are implemented without differentiating against anyone on the lines of caste or religion. IE: Surely, the schemes cut across castes and religion, but that’s the right of a citizen. Isn’t representation in the Legislature, in the government, significant too? Amit Shah: Our ticket distribution is on the basis of winnability. If the media creates a wedge between the minorities and BJP, and as it intensifies, there will not be any candidate who can win. We do hope that this gap ends. You also help the BJP in it. If you ask the question, 'Is there any family left out of the scheme?', that gap would have been narrowed. But you ask 'Ticket mila kya?. I am blunt, so I am saying it. IE: But the BJP is India's largest party, with 18 crore members, and still you do not find a single Muslim candidate? Amit Shah: You are wrong. We had won 325 seats (in UP, in 2017), still we made a Muslim an MLC and made him minister.That’s why I say that when media reduces the gap, it will end. For The Indian Express, a citizen can be a Hindu or a Muslim, not for the BJP worker. The MLC we sent to the UP Assembly has been our worker for a long time. IE: On the hijab issue, you have expressed your view (that a school’s code on uniform should be followed). But when a state government, Karnataka, issues an order saying what cannot be worn… Amit Shah: We have not issued any order. The Karnataka government is implementing the High Court order. IE: Did the state consult you? Amit Shah: Why should it? It’s a state and it has the machinery. It has to control the law and order and it will take steps for it. IE: Women and girls being asked to take off their hijab outside schools and colleges, did you watch those videos from Karnataka? Amit Shah: Dekhiye… woh video ko wahan ki police ne respond karna hai. Voh dhang se karna chahiye (Police there has to investigate those videos. It must do its work well). Anyway lawyers of both sides have made their arguments before the court. Let the court decide. Newspapers cannot take the decision. IE: In November 2020, when a section of the BJP was linking farm protests to Khalistan, you did say there was no politics in the protests and that the government would talk to the farmers. Why did the protests drag so long? Amit Shah: I think there were some issues with the farmers’ organisations. The decision-making process was not so smooth. That's why it took so long. If 40 people come together to take a decision, the process takes time. If there was a smaller team, it would have been easy. Anyway, it’s the past now. IE: You mention discussion… The J&K Reorganisation Act, when the decision involves the Union Government alone, you push it through. But when it requires discussion with states, stakeholders, it gets delayed or cancelled, like in the case of farm laws, land acquisition and labour laws. Amit Shah: You may not have heard Modiji's address to the nation (on farm laws). It’s not a question of victory or defeat. We could not convince everyone, what’s the big deal? It’s good for democracy. Why are you feeling awkward about it? IE: On vaccination, a formidable success, the Centre and states worked together. Isn't it possible to work with states on lawmaking? Amit Shah: There are so many things (on which the Centre and states work together). When a cyclone hits, there is no conflict. There are so many laws on which everyone is on the same page. But you look at only the controversial Acts. When you look for controversies, you will only get those. Both the Centre and states implemented GST together. Only one provision had to be put to vote. There was no controversy. IE: There is Centre-state tension over a caste census. Amit Shah: There has been no census on the basis of caste so far. There are so many caste groups, how do you determine the caste of one person? Is there any way to decide? There are around 80,000 caste groups which we do not know much about. How can we do a census? For example, Purushottam Rupala is a Patel, but he doesn't write so. His name is linked to his village. Badal, Dhindsa, all these names come from their villages. Who will certify which caste anyone is? Everyone will claim something. IE: Is there a way out? Amit Shah: Some method has to be evolved. IE: Some issues between the Centre and states have endured for decades. Non-BJP states have issues with their Governors, they allege interference… Amit Shah: I think the Constitution is clear on Centre-state relations. If you read the Constitution carefully, you would understand if there's any interference. There is no confusion in the Constitution. IE: Is there any formal mechanism for better Centre-state discussions, like the National Development Council (NDC)? Amit Shah: Parliament is there. There should not be any extra-constitutional mechanism. If the NDC could resolve it, all the issues would have been solved. IE: All parties opposing the BJP are branded anti-national. Amit Shah: We never called anyone anti-national. We never called any party anti-national. But if any party indulges in supporting anti-nationals, we will expose them. It’s our responsibility. IE: But now you have linked a party symbol with terrorism? Amit Shah: How can you deny the fact that he (the Akhilesh government) released those who were charged under anti-terrorism laws, and that the Allahabad High Court intervened? Leave me, I am in his opposition, what would you say? If any government withdraws cases against terrorists, we will call it anti-national. IE: You are confident of a victory in UP. So what will the priority of a second Yogi Adityanath government be? Amit Shah: Yogi Adityanath has led an exemplary life and he has done great work on law and order. It has improved so well in Uttar Pradesh and it has become an election issue. There is an impressive improvement: 30-70 per cent drop in cases of robbery, dacoity, rape, etc. The state never had such good roads – Ghaziabad to Ganga, Gorakhpur to Agra, every region in the state is connected to an Expressway. After 22 years, the state has started getting electricity for more than 12 hours. But you want to ask, 'Why Muslims are not given a ticket?'. Our issues are different: they are gas connection, electricity, houses and free ration etc. We have fulfilled 92 per cent of the promises in our 2017 manifesto. Under the PM Awas Yojana, around 42 lakh homes have been constructed and handed over in UP. Under the Saubhagya Yojana, 1.42 crore homes have got electricity. The Ujjwala Yojana has benefited over 1.61 crore women. Our government has started the ambitious project of providing piped water to every household, over 80 crore citizens across the country are being provided free rations and other essential items for the past two years during the pandemic. The Yogi Adityanath government has also waived off agriculture loans worth Rs 36,000 crore, which has led to 2.3 times increase in the per capita income of UP. The social index has seen an improvement of 80%. IE: There are some who mention Adityanath as a future prime ministerial candidate. Amit Shah: Naturally. So much work has been done under him, after so many years. UP got 30 medical colleges. we will see to it that every district has one. The state has two AIIMS while a research centre for Japanese encephalitis has also been constructed. The BJP government has built 10 new universities, opened 77 new colleges. Our government has also reconstructed and redeveloped 1.40 lakh colleges across Uttar Pradesh. IE: PM Modi had called MNREGA a living monument of the UPA's failures. However, the fact that around 60% of the population in UP gets free ration, does it not suggest that people are still unable to sustain themselves despite all the talk on development? Amit Shah: Your interpretation is not correct. We provided free ration because Covid affected the livelihood of many people, their incomes stopped, they had no savings. It was the government's duty to stop them from dying of hunger. It was a special requirement. There is a difference in the way we work: we have given gas connections, power connections and it’s up to them to pay their bills. We have made toilets for them but they have to maintain them. There's a lot of difference. When you take populist measures, you promise to pay electricity bills, free gas etc. What we did was to provide help to upgrade their lives - this is empowerment. This triggered aspirations too. Earlier, there were loan waivers. We realised the small farmers take loans to do farming. So instead of waiving their loans, we asked them not to take a loan and provided them Rs 6,000 for it. That’s the amount NABARD has calculated as needed for a majority of the farmers, those whose holdings are less than 2 acres. Each of our programmes is to empower them, not to make them dependent. There is nothing worse than a government not being able to provide women a toilet for 70 years. IE: In Jammu and Kashmir, you brought in a law for District Development Councils. But, on the ground, the empowerment hasn’t happened. Amit Shah: (To understand this) you should consider the situation in India in the 1960s. You cannot compare the situation in Jammu and Kashmir with that in any other state. People there are still unsure of their rights and duties. They (DDC members) are getting trained, their offices are being constructed. the process of percolating democracy has started. Investment of Rs 13,000-14,000 crore has already come to the state. MoUs for Rs 31,000 crore are there. IE: At a national level, what's your sense of the economy? Private investment has been poor, there was a slowdown even before the pandemic… Amit Shah: Investment does not come with just sentiment. You need atmosphere and administrative reforms. We have improved the atmosphere and taken steps on administrative reforms. There was no drone policy, we have blacklisted a number of sectors for defence imports and we have started taking steps to produce (defence equipment) inside our country. By initiating PLI schemes in a number of sectors, we have given impetus to the manufacturing sector. We review the duty structure every three months to give priority to Indian manufacturers. We have announced measures in the Budget to push the manufacturing sector. We have taken steps keeping in mind the country's requirement when it completes 100th year of Independence. Both in direct and indirect tax, those who are paying have gone up and the revenue too has gone up. In comparison with many other countries, our fiscal deficit is in control. Thanks to our policies in the banking sector, it is cleaner. You cannot compare our economic situation or policies with that of the UPA, which chose to hide expenses. We have been transparent in our budgets. We spent money on welfare schemes, still we have a control on the fiscal deficit. IE: But the job sector is still disappointing? Amit Shah: Do not look at the job sector like Communists, who consider only government jobs as employment. This is not correct. There is a difference between jobs and employment. We have improved the employment situation. It’s natural that people talk about jobs. But you have to understand the difference – there are so many startups, we have improved the e-marketing opportunities. IE: Do you think political parties need to communicate to the young that the government isn’t the only source of jobs? Amit Shah: It’s not for the parties. It’s also for the newspapers. It’s the responsibility of everyone. The anger comes out when people do not have confidence in the leadership they have. But people have confidence in Prime Minister Modi. They may express anger, but they trust Modiji's intention. That confidence will help us win this election in Uttar Pradesh.
