UP bypoll defeats spark rumblings against Yogi Adityanath

New Delhi/Lucknow: Knives are out in the BJP following the party’s defeat by the united Opposition in both Kairana Lok Sabha and Noorpur Assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh with some MLAs even questioning chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s leadership. A day after the crushing bypoll defeats, BJP president Amit Shah held a meeting of party’s national general secretaries on Friday to discuss issues, including the bypoll losses in UP and the recently concluded Karnataka poll where the party failed to get a simple majority despite being the largest party.

Apart from hinting at a diminishing Modi magic, the margin of bypoll losses shows that the united Opposition parties have managed to transfer votes to their joint candidate, said a party leader.

Saffron spin doctors feel that if the going gets tough for the party in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan Assembly elections later in the year, it may “have to bank upon Hindu consolidation” to return to power. In both MP and Rajasthan, there are a significant number of dalits and OBCs.

While analysing the bypoll results, Union minister Prakash Javadekar denied that the Modi magic was on the wane and claimed that the BJP would return to power at the Centre even stronger after 2019 Lok Sabha polls. He said that those looking at the bypoll results as a reflection of public opinion on the Modi government’s performance were wrong.

After the bypoll losses, Uttar Pradesh MLAs have started questioning chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s leadership amid reports that the BJP cadre is not happy with the state leadership, including many ministers. The chief minister, it was learnt, held a review meeting with state leaders who were given the charge of Kairana and Noorpur bypolls.

Many state leaders admitted that despite knowing beforehand that the sugarcane price issue in the region could dent the party’s poll prospects badly, and caste politics will play a crucial role, the party’s poll managers did not take any measures.

A section within the BJP’s state unit blamed the choice of candidate in the Lok Sabha bypoll. Fielding late Hukum Singh’s daughter Mriganka from Kairana was not ideal when her opponent from the RLD was backed by the SP, Congress and the BSP.

The Yogi Adityanath-led government’s “failure” to “rein in” the state bureaucracy was also said to be one of the reasons behind the BJP’s continued poll losses after the Gorakhpur and Phulpur parliamentary seats in March.

In Kairana, jats, who had strongly backed the BJP in 2014 and then in last year’s Assembly polls in the state, tilted towards the RLD’s Muslim candidate, who got the backing of her numerically strong community in the region. This has forced saffron poll managers to rework their caste calculations. Dalits, who had also supported the BJP earlier, also seem to be looking for options despite the saffron party’s initiatives to reach out to them.

However, BJP poll managers still believe that the Opposition unity would not be able to make much impact in 2019 when every strategy by the joint Opposition will fail in front of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, under whose leadership the party will go to polls.

However, the BJP has to face some serious questions from within after the bypoll losses with Uttar Pradesh MLA from Gopama, Shyam Prakash, posting a satirical poem on his Facebook page criticising the party leadership, apparently chief minister Yogi Adityanath.

The poem says, “Modi ke naam par ban gaye raja, kar na sake janta man kaaj. Sangh, sangathan haath lagaam, mukhya mantra bhi asahay (helpless).”

The MLA said, “The poem reflects his personal opinion. Corruption is on the rise and that is the only reason. The chief minister should work harder and look into this. If the people at the top do not change their style, nothing will work in the future.”

Another party MLA, Surendra Singh, blamed the ministers in the Yogi Adityanath government for the bypoll losses. Mr Singh claimed that most of the state ministers do not meet people or  party workers who are the backbone of the party and alleged that the BJP has so far failed to give a transparent government in the state.