BJP may kick off UP campaign at power meet

The BJP’s power-packed show in Allahabad, Eastern Uttar Pradesh this weekend is aimed at setting the tone for assembly elections next year when “Goonda Raj” will form the bulwark of the party’s attack against the ruling Samajwadi Party with a special focus being given to the recent violence in Mathura.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address a public rally on June 13, at the culmination of the BJP national executive’s two day meeting. The entire BJP brass – PM, BJP President Amit Shah, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Home Minister Rajnath Singh and the veterans L. K. Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi et al – will attend the national executive meeting besides other top Cabinet Ministers, Chief Ministers and prominent MPs and state leaders.

The ruling party is in process of finalising its political and economic resolutions. While the political resolution will underline the party’s stand on all contemporary political issues, an added focus will on the “collapse” of law and order in Uttar Pradesh. The economic resolution is expected to highlight the “pro-poor” and “rural” focus of the Government with special highlights on the increased allocations in the Union Budget this year towards agriculture.

The party will also give details of its achievements in the past two years through the introductory address of the BJP President as well as remarks of the Finance Minister and finally, the summation by the Prime Minister.

Speaking to reporters here, BJP National Secretary Shrikant Sharma said, “Goonda Raj in Uttar Pradesh is the main issue. Our party President is addressing it in all the booth-level meetings of the six zones in UP. We have simultaneously launched a state-wide agitation against land mafia-politician-criminal nexus. What happened in Mathura is illustrative of a larger menace in UP and it has gone largely unnoticed.”

The PM in his rally is especially expected to target the ruling party in UP and announce the commencement of the BJP’s campaign in the politically-critical state where it had won 71 of the 80 parliamentary seats in the general elections two years back.

The BJP has chosen to project the political contest in UP as being largely against SP while completely ignoring the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which failed to win any seats in the Lok Sabha elections but was the third largest political party in the country with as many as 22946346 votes polled. In UP, the BSP retained 19.77 per cent of vote share despite the Modi wave in 2014.

The one logic for making 2017 UP elections as an SP-versus-BJP contest is the consolidation on communal lines which benefits both the parties with SP’s “Muslim appeasement” and the BJP’s Hindu consolidation efforts towards which have already started in Western UP with the party cadre and elected representatives participating in the anti-beef Panchayats in Dadri.

Another much-talked about aspect of the BJP’s UP push is the speculation about its chief ministerial candidate with names like Mahesh Sharma, Yogi Adityanath, Varun Gandhi and Smriti Irani being bandied about. The party, however, has dismissed such reports as “rumours” with Shrikant Sharma asserting, “Kamal (BJP’s election symbol, lotus) will lead the BJP’s campaign.”

The BJP also has to reconstitute the national executive soon and is expected to add more representation from the North-East and southern states where it hopes to expand in the future.