Narendra Modi may have coined a new muscular idiom for Hindutva but the BJP’s President Rajnath Singh seems to be the only one in the party to claim Atal Behari Vajpayee’s enduring legacy.

In reality, being Vajpayee’s legatee has proven to be an uphill task — both intellectually and in real political terms.

The rugged Thakur leader made a conscious shift to the seat that Vajpayee once held — Lucknow. Rajnath had won from Ghaziabad, bordering Delhi, in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections with active help from the Samajwadi Party (SP).

The SP had then decided against fielding any candidate against Rajnath. But in this election, when the BJP expects to ride the wave of Modi’s popularity, Rajnath has made a rather clumsy, un-Vajpayeesque acquisition of the Lucknow seat. His campaign managers, however, hasten to maintain that Rajnath actually had no hand in switching seats from Ghaziabad to Lucknow.

“This was a decision taken by the party’s collective leadership,” said Rajnath’s son and campaign manager Pankaj Singh. “Really, there was no politics in it. The party may have its own calculations. But my father did not push for anything.” While appropriating his seat may not necessarily mean an automatic internalisation of Vajpayee’s brand of politics and mind space, Rajnath has certainly managed to upset an entire range of local calculations.

Local calculations Local sitting MP Lalji Tandon, who had carried Vajpayee’s slippers as campaign material in 2009, is left seething.

And the Brahmins, who constitute about 12-15 per cent of the local population (about 2.45-3 lakh voters), have been alerted to the traditional caste rivalries between the Thakur strongmen and the Brahmin gentry that once ruled the state — from the first CM Govind Ballabh Pant to Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna and ND Tiwari.

Moreover, from 1952 to 2014, the Lucknow seat has been held by non-Brahmins only thrice — BK Dhawan in the 1970s, Mandata Singh of the Janata Dal in 1989 and Lalji Tandon in 2009.

Of the five sitting MLAs within the Lucknow parliamentary seat, three are Brahmins. Kalraj Mishra, the sitting MLA from Lucknow (East), has been shifted against his will to contest this parliamentary election in Deoria.

Moreover, the Congress has once again fielded the indomitable Rita Bahuguna Joshi, Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna’s daughter, to fight Rajnath.

Caste politics

“Brahmins this time will vote as tactically as the Muslims. They will vote to retain their supremacy. They will vote for whoever among their community is in a position to win. It is not a tactical vote for or against the BJP but for the supremacy of the Brahmins as a ruling class,” said a local BJP leader.

The second significant factor here are the Muslims who constitute about 23-25 per cent of the total electorate. The Shias, a minority who are numerically important with about 60,000 voters, are traditionally said to vote for exactly the rival party as the Sunnis, who constitute the majority among the Muslims. However, the presence of a polarising figure like Modi is expected to consolidate the Muslim vote.

“The Muslim vote does get scattered in Lucknow. The SP has done well to project the local sitting MLA from Lucknow (West) Abhishek Mishra against Rajnath Singh. Rita Bahuguna Joshi too is a strong candidate. The Muslims will wait and watch who is in the strongest position to defeat the BJP. I feel that Ritaji is the preferred candidate this time,” said a prominent Muslim leader who did not wish to be named. The city also has a large population, about 1.5 lakh paharis, a region Joshi originally hails from.

In Shastri Bhawan, where the State Government offices are located, the discussions reveal that the real indication of whether Rajnath will override these difficult equations will be the mood after the first vote is cast. “They say there is a Modi wave in the State. There is definitely a buzz around the BJP but whether it is sweeping the State will be visible only after western UP has voted. The winds of change will blow from the west this time.

As of now, all we can say is that it is very tough contest for Rajnath Singh,” said a senior officer in the UP Government.

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