With 80 Lok Sabha seats to contribute to the national kitty, conventional wisdom has it that the road to New Delhi goes through Lucknow. That is hardly an exaggeration. For any serious contender for prime minister ship, Uttar Pradesh presents a challenge of herculean proportions as well as a grand opportunity. And Narendra Modi is a serious contender.
There was a time not so long ago, in the heyday of the Ram Janma Bhoomi agitation days, when the BJP used to win 50 plus seats in UP thereby pitch forking itself as a party of government; today its’ strength in the Lok Sabha has shrunk to 10 – as have its political prospects.
Party strategists believe that if Modi’s government is to become a reality, it would need to better its 1990s tally; they are therefore aiming to get around 60 seats. As part of its grand strategy for saffronising UP again, it plans to put up a list of heavyweight contenders, including the Gujarat chief minister from a number of prized constituencies in the state.
According to well placed party sources, in what is aimed at a strategy to ‘flood’ UP from all directions, Modi himself may contest from Varanasi, Rajnath Singh from Lucknow, Uma Bharti from Jhansi and Kalraj Mishra from Kanpur. Sources said discussions allotting specific constituencies are going on at the highest level in the party.
If Sangh calculations are to be believed, the positioning of Modi from Varanasi is crucial as it will help to galvanise public mood in the crucial Gangetic or cow belt, the holy city situated not too far from the Bihar border. Its impact, they estimate, will be felt as far as Allahabad and will hopefully help party prospects in the crucial Gandhi family constituencies of Amethi, Sultanpur and Rae Bareli.
BJP strategists think that with Modi in Varanasi and Mahant Avaidyanath from Gorakhpur, the 30 odd ‘purabiya’ or eastern UP Lok Sabha constituencies are more or less covered. Says a senior BJP leader: “Varanasi is ideally located between UP and Bihar. Its temperament suits Modi. It is true that that he will talk development but the underlying Hindutva essence is not going to be lost on voters, given the religiosity of the place.’’ Already Modi’s successful Gorakhpur rally had the stamp of Mahant Avaidyanath’s organizational clout in the region.
There is another reason why Modi is seriously viewing Varanasi as an option; its proximity to Bihar. In the neighbouring state too, there is reportedly a pro-Modi wave on which will make it easier for the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate to keep an eye on close to 120 Lok Sabha seats between the two states – UP’s 80 and Bihar’s 40. If the party manages to get 50 from UP, the party believes it can win the rest 150 from other parts of the country, including their traditional strongholds in western India. With 200 or so Lok Sabha seats, they believe it would be difficult to hold back a resurgent NDA from forming the next government at the centre.
As part of its effort to reach the 50-mark, the BJP is working out newer tactics in social engineering. Putting up Uma Bharti from Jhansi is expected to upset well laid down SP-BSP calculations in Bundelkhand. It also means that the Uma Bharti factor will become important in districts like Jhansi, Banda and Karvi as well as the neighbouring Damoh and Khajuraho Lok Sabha seats in MP.
If sources are to be believed, Kalraj Mishra is being seriously considered from Kanpur. There are good reasons to field him from there. Regarded the Brahmin face of the BJP in the state, the party is all going all out to woo the twice born caste for its 16 percent voters who play an important role in the final verdict. Both Atal Behari Vajpayee and Mayawati were beneficiaries of this vote but due to massive infighting, somehow it has turned out to be elusive for the saffron combine in the last decade-and-a-half. This time, the gamble to introduce Kalraj is aimed at getting this crucial vote bank in addition to retaining Kanpur, a traditional Brahmin-dominated constituency, as well as a Congress bastion.
Party sources say that the impact of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in neighbouring Delhi is such that BJP president Rajnath Singh wants to get out of Ghaziabad which he currently represents and go to Lucknow. In their calculations, if there is a constituency in UP that would take the first brunt of the AAP onslaught, it would be Ghaziabad, once home to Arvind Kejriwal before the Delhi chief minister hit big time.
In this high blitz UP campaign, the BJP plans to introduce other well known faces. Among those in the reckoning include Hema Malini from Mathura, which has both Brahman and Jat votes. Hema Malini is a south Indian Brahman while actor husband Dharmendra is a Jat. Even though the BJP finds itself on a strong wicket in western UP – post the Muzzafarnagar riots – it is not taking any chances. Former Mumbai police commissioner Satyapal Singh is almost certain to be the BJP’s star candidate against Ajit Singh, most likely from Baghpat.
According to party strategists, fiery Varun Gandhi may be shifted to Sultanpur, a traditional Gandhi family stronghold in central UP from Pilibhit; his place could be taken by mother Maneka Gandhi. Varun is keen that the party gives the Lakhimpur Kheri seat to his wife but a decision on it is yet to be taken. The main problems before BJP are the two Lok Sabha seats adjacent to Delhi, Ghaziabad and Noida. They have yet to find suitable candidates but are looking out for well known faces who can make the job of campaigning easier. If this BJP strategy in UP works out, half their battles would have been won.
In former UP chief minister Kalyan Singh, the BJP has its best chance at cultivating the crucial Other Backward Castes (OBC) vote. Once the party’s most credible backward face, his ouster from the party in 1999 virtually finished the party in the state. Organisationally speaking, Singh is the best connected UP leader, and it is for this reason that he is a regular fixture on the dais at all Modi meetings in UP. For the BJP to make a play, their once strong OBC vote bank has to return. Saffron leaders, at least on record, have been exuding a lot of confidence about UP. Rajnath Singh told reporters that they were looking for a tally upwards of 50 Lok Sabha seat while key Modi aide Amit Shah says all the 80 Lok Sabha seats in UP are currently under a ‘Modi-spell’.
Privately, they say that the tally could be closer to 40. But these ten seats that the party believes still eludes it, will inch closer as D-Day approaches.
