Will Amit Shah’s strategy help the lotus bloom in UP?

The change in power equations is subtle but definite in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The party’s chief poll manager Arun Jaitley is off to Amritsar to fight his own battle and Narendra Modi’s man for all seasons, Amit Shah, is slowly filling in the slot as the BJP’s chief strategist.

Officially, Shah is in charge of Uttar Pradesh, the most critical State where the BJP has to perform miracles if it is to install Narendra Modi in the Prime Minister’s Office.

The tally has to rise exponentially from the 10 seats that the BJP currently holds in the Hindi heartland State.

Assisted by as many as five leaders — Trivendra Singh Rawat, Rameshwar Chaurasia, Satyendra Narayan Kushwaha, Hriday Nath Singh and Captain Abhimanyu — Shah has turned around the BJP’s story in UP in a matter of eight months.

The dispirited organisation and directionless leaders have found a sense of purpose in all the 62 districts that Shah has visited since June.

Shah has held meetings with party workers and local RSS leaders in each of these districts and made sure assigned tasks are carried out with a higher level of accountability.

The initial scepticism about entrusting a man accused of murder with the most significant political task has turned to grudging awe.

“We have been dead in UP in the last ten years. The karyakarta had no accountability and individual candidates managed their elections with their own resources and clout. Now, a meeting is held of booth management committees in every district. From the booth, individual voters are tracked and targeted. There is a new energy in the party,” said a BJP insider.

There is a management committee for each of the 1.28 lakh booths in all 80 parliamentary constituencies. Their task is to mobilise voters and get them out to vote on the polling day. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has a parallel structure right from the State, district and Shakha (basic unit of the RSS) that monitors the process of electioneering, in addition to loaning out volunteers to the BJP for political mobilisation.

Besides strengthening the organisational response to elections, Shah supervises all other aspects of electioneering — selection of candidates, campaign strategy, advertising campaigns and rallies.

Even before the elections were announced, Modi had finished his preliminary round of as many as seven rallies.

In the candidates’ list announced by the BJP for UP so far, Shah has picked candidates who have the best chance of winning the seat. Some of them have been poached from other parties — as is the case of Dharmendra Kushwaha in Aonla, who came in from Samajwadi Party, Jagdambika Pal in Domariyagunj who has hopped in from the Congress or SP Singh Baghel in Firozabad who, too, was roped in from the SP. Shah’s strategy is to iron out local dissidence and issues by the sheer force of Narendra Modi’s candidature from Varanasi.

Without any articulation, this move is expected to consolidate the Hindu vote, and along with local Hindutva icons such as Yogi Adityanath of Gorakhpur, the BJP may get 27 seats in the Poorvanchal region.

The communal polarisation after riots in Muzaffarnagar and Shamli last September also gives a fillip to the BJP’s prospects in the 17 seats in this area. In Bundelkhand and Central UP, Shah is banking on individual candidates’ clout and the Modi charisma to counter the local forces — the BSP and SP, respectively.

The announcement of tickets was done at the last minute to ensure that rebel activity is contained and is not given adequate time to consolidate. Although disenchantment with seat distribution — in Domariyagunj against Jagdambika Pal’s candidature as well as other seats such as Deoria and even Faizabad where the local stalwart Vinay Katiyar has reportedly opened a front against the official candidate Lallu Singh — is openly being articulated, the BJP hopes it will subside in the next couple of weeks as the election date approaches.

Modi’s trusted man has so far not made too many mistakes in UP and has helped revive the party. The party is certain that he will be able crystallise the Modi wave into large number of seats this time.