The Saffron Wash

The BJP has planned its UP campaign to the last detail but problems remain.

- Uday Mahurkar

The showers of the retreating monsoon seem to be no dampener in this Lucknow suburb. A packed crowd has come out to hear Amit Shah, president of the Bharatiya Janata Party and architect of the party’s near­sweep in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

Yet, it isn’t the BJP which has organised the public meeting. Rather, it is Jugal Kishore, a Bahujan Samaj Party leader who was once close to party chief Mayawati but whose loyalties have now clearly shifted. The crowds are a show of strength for Shah’s benefit, and they are curious to hear him speak. Never one to disappoint, Shah works the crowd, carrying them aloft on the fervour of rousing cries of ‘Babasaheb Ambedkar ki jai’ and ‘Sabka saath sabka vikas’. The ‘empowering’, ‘pro­poor’ schemes of the Modi government are duly highlighted, and set in contrast with the alleged corruption of the ruling SP and BSP. Ergo ‘Na goonda raj, na bhrashtachar, abki baar Modi sarkar’. There’s also ‘Babasaheb ka sapna, bhajpa karega pura’, offered as an apt conclusion post an enumeration of the things the NDA government has done to highlight Ambedkar’s contribution to the nation.