With around 80 Lok
Sabha seats, the state of Uttar Pradesh has always been the most politically
significant state in the country as far as the national politics is concerned.
Since the past two decades, the state is dictating the terms as to come to power
at the Centre. Among the two national parties, the rise of the BJP is actually
seen as a result of the polarization that it created in the state with the help
of its partisan politics and the deadly VHP yatra’s by wrecking the issue of
the Ram Temple which led to not only the demolition of the Babri Masjid in
Ayodhya but also fuelled some of the worst riots in the state despite its Chief
Minister’s assurance to the High Court to preserve the disputed mosque.
The recent VHP rallies
around Ayodhya are largely nothing but a political experiment that hasn’t quite
clicked in a state where polarization has worked in the favour of the Sangh
Parivar. Though a conscious BJP has though tried its best to shield itself from
any association with the VHP initiative, but the fact remains that nothing
happens in the Sangh Parivar without letting each other know about their plans.
In fact if sources are to be believed, the Ram Temple issue had been discussed
among top leaders of the RSS, the BJP and the VHP earlier this year soon after
Rajnath Singh had taken over as the President of the BJP. Rajnath Singh too is
seen as a close aide and associate of the RSS.
There is however a
firm belief among the top cadres of the Sangh Parivar that polarization has
always helped the BJP in the crucial state of Uttar Pradesh. The BJP in its
earlier form as the Bharatiya Jana Sangh has gained electorally from the
Goraksha (Save the Cow) movement in 1966 by winning 98 out of 425 assembly
seats. And the BJP in 1989 rising back to 85 compared to two seats won in 1984
on the backing of a Shilapujan programme for the Ram templein 1989 and then to
a whopping 120 in 1991. And it is this belief that has made a unanimous
understanding in the Sangh Parivar to create as much polarization as possible
in the state so that they can reap the maximum political benefits out of it in
the upcoming 2014 general elections.
But the manner in
which the the UP government has reacted to the VHP’s latest ‘84 Kosi Parikrama’
has led to wide allegations from the
Congress and the BSP, both of which have a lot at stake in Uttar Pradesh, that
the SP and the VHP have struck an understanding. In fact, the VHP had initially
had struggled to provoke the SP into any kind of response to the programme. It
was until the SP’s Muslim face, UP Minister Azam Khan, issued a public
statement on August 19 criticising Mulayam’s meeting with the VHP delegations.
As if on a cue, UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav announced denial of permission
that very day.
As of now, a temporary
jail set up on the Delhi-Haridwar National Highway in Muzaffarnagar illustrates
the way the programme has gone. It remained vacant even till the day after the
yatra. The programme has completely failed to gather enough members and not even
the crackdown on VHP activists generated any protest which is a clear message
of rejection to the BJP by the people of UP of such politics of polarization.
The BJP now should realize that the voters of today are no more foolish to fall
prey to such silly tactics and that they need to have other agendas in order to
get their house in pkace in the state of UP. As the popular old saying goes, ‘The
road to New Delhi goes through Uttar Pradesh”, its high time BJP realizes that
and get their calculations correct as this trick is certainly not going to work
this time around.
For all sorts of
bouquets and brickbats feel free to leave a comment below or mail me at
author.vish94@gmail.com
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