Hindutva And Welfarism Drive The BJP's Push To Retain Power

The BJP Is banking on hindutva and development to win this election. But it is battling anti-incumbency, anger over key issues and an opposition that is up for a fight. With an unpredictable electorate, there is no knowing which way the state will vote

- Puja Awasthi

In Uttar Pradesh politics, predicting an electoral winner is difficult and foolhardy in equal measure. This is a state that has not given any chief minister a second chance at a full five-year term. It has an electorate that has long debunked the prophecy that whoever rules it will get a shot at forming the Union government (remember Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav). It is also a state that routinely mocks political predictions.

The 2022 assembly polls are no different.

Yogi Adityanath, who initiated his career opposing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in his hometown of Gorakhpur, was a surprise pick for the state’s top post. But he quickly proved to be a tough ruler, unabashed about his beliefs. Thus, he has un-apologetically refused to wear skull caps, has been a loud votary of Hindu pride and talks in the only language that criminals understand. Of the last, his ‘thok do (shoot them)’ remark is perhaps as well-known as it is criticised.

Under him, the state has initiated legislation that other states have emulated (like the law on illegal religious conversion), aggressively invited investment and taken on a bureaucracy that has always lumbered to its own diktats.

The BJP is banking on hindutva pride and development to win this election. Unlike the last Lok Sabha election, nationalism is not an issue, at least not as yet. Sidharth Nath Singh, the state’s cabinet minister for micro, small and medium enterprises, investment and export, said that there were “two parallelly strong aspects” that would benefit the BJP. “The first is the manner in which law and order has improved and people can go about their daily lives and businesses. The second is the all-round development that is visible in the state,” he said.