Why Akhilesh Yadav is to blame for 'helping' Yogi Adityanath's BJP sweep UP civic polls
The BJP's sweep in Uttar Pradesh civic polls was a foregone conclusion for anyone keeping a tab on the entire election process that culminated with declaration of the results on December 1.
Not only was the BJP the only party to have gone whole hog for the civic polls, but its chief minister Yogi Adityanath made it a prestige issue and took command of the campaign himself. With that, an otherwise no-so-significant election fight was taken to an unprecedented level. Never before did any political party’s top leadership get so deeply involved in local body election as Yogi did this time.
And what clearly also benefitted the BJP was the contrasting virtual surrender by the main Opposition - the Samajwadi Party - whose leader and former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav did not even step out of the comforts of his home to campaign on a single occasion. Thus, if Yogi Adityanath had emerged as a big hero, it was also attributable to the “walk-over” given by Akhilesh Yadav and the near-absence of any opposition on ground, where the saffron-clad CM got an open field to play.
Why AKhilesh Yadav chose to give up the fight at the very outset remains a mystery though, even as several theories were being floated. While in some quarters, it was being suspected that this was the outcome of some kind of a deal between Akhilesh Yadav and Yogi, others believe that the Samajwadi Party chief was yet to come out of the shock of the devastating defeat in March 2017 state election, when the BJP and allies bagged 324 of the 403 Assembly seats.
It was a virtual rout for the Congress, which failed to make any headway even in Amethi, its much acclaimed and only undisputed political bastion, represented by none other than Rahul Gandhi in the Lok Sabha. The only saving grace that the Congress can boast of is the fact that even the BJP could not win either of the two Nagar Palika seats in Amethi, which went to Samajwadi Party and an independent. Of the two Town Area seats there, one went to a BJP nominee who had crossed over from Samajwadi Party not very long ago.
Interestingly, even as Yogi Adityanath lords over a fantastic win across the state, his nominee lost in the heart of his own bastion, Gorakhpur, where the key local corporator’s seat went to an independent.
Significantly, this is the seat from where Yogi himself is a voter and covers his own Gorakhnath temple and its surroundings.
This election has sprung the biggest surprise for the BSP, which managed to win two crucial mayoral positions. While BJP nominees won on 14 seats of mayor, BSP's score of two was truly meaningful and some kind of a morale booster for the party that went down in the dumps in the March state Assembly elections.
Mayawati, who looked completely crestfallen since then, is bound to use this win as some kind of a fuel to revive her party in UP.
The BSP’s win in Meerut and Aligarh also indicates a drift of the Muslim vote towards the party , as both these cities have a large Muslim population. In the absence of any strong Samajwadi Party nominee, local Muslims obviously went en bloc for the BSP.
Even Akhilesh’s own party insiders wondered why their leader went for a virtual “surrender” before its most-sworn rival, the BJP, and in the bargain, the BSP received a shot in the arm.
Strangely, Akhilesh Yadav - who had displayed tremendous grit to fight his way out with his father and SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav, from whom he literally usurped the party and managed to sideline other detractors including his once powerful uncle Shivpal Yadav - failed to muster up the courage and confidence, when it came to fighting a political battle with his most-sworn adversary, the BJP.
SP partymen as well as critics have been at their wit’s end to understand the logic behind his passive approach to this elections, which he clearly did not take with any seriousness. What he seemed to have missed is that the local polls are bound to have a bearing on the crucial 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
No one has been able to understand why Akhilesh Yadav fielded extremely weak or rather “dummy” candidates in several key places where the party could have given the BJP a run for its money. And that includes the state capital, Lucknow, where the mayoral nominee of the party was someone who was neither remotely connected with Samajwad or the Samajwadi Party. Her only political credentials were that she was married to the grandson of the giant socialist ideologue Acharya Narendra Dev, who passed away more than 60 years ago. All that SP workers seem to know of him is that he was someone whose portrait, as a matter of ritual, finds a place on the walls of every SP office or SP leader’s residence.
However, Lucknow was not the only place where the SP fielded weak candidates for the all-important position of mayor. That was the case in at least three other places. While one of those seats went to the BJP, two others were bagged by the BSP.
After all, having established its sway right from the national level (73 of the 80 UP Lok Sabha seats) to the state level (324 of the 403 state Assembly seats) and now in the local body elections, the BJP undeniably has equipped itself with the wherewithal to deliver and build its goodwill well before 2019. The party, in all likelihood, will also push its Hindutva agenda more aggressively now.
However, the vast mandate at various levels also entails a major challenge for both BJP and Yogi Adityanath . Unlike the past when one could pass the buck to a rival political party-led government sitting at the state or national level, there is going to be no excuse for failures as the party will now be held solely accountable if promises remain unfulfilled.
And that would be no mean challenge.