New Delhi: Was BJP’s election strategy for the Uttar Pradesh bypolls an experiment for the 2017 Assembly elections? The saffron party is abuzz that the top brass wanted to test the waters before the Assembly elections in the politically and electorally crucial state by sidelining party’s youth icon Varun Gandhi, also considered by many as a soft Hindutva face and instead projecting hardline hindutva face Yogi Adityanath.
However, the experiment “failed” and the party’s poll managers, it is learnt, are re-strategising the assembly polls campaign which will focus majorly on saffron party’s main poll planks of development and good governance. On Wednesday, Union minister and Varun Gandhi’s mother Maneka Gandhi, while refused to comment on party’s by-polls debacle but suggested, though in a lighter vein, that her son should be brought back to the centre of politics in the state.
When asked to comment on the absence of star campaigners, including her son during the bypolls, Ms Gandhi quipped “okay, so now we are just going to bring him back”. Some state leaders of the saffron party also feel that keeping Union minister Uma Bharti away from campaigning was also part of the poll strategy. Ms Bharti, once considered as the face of hardline Hindutva, has toned down her stance in recent years especially after her reinduction in the BJP. BJP bagged third position in Charkhari, Assembly seat held by Ms Bharti before she won the Jhansi parliamentary seat.
While the BJP claimed that the bypolls results were not as per the expectation and have given it an opportunity to correct its shortcomings at local level for the upcoming assembly polls, a majority section within the party’s UP unit feels that the “experiment was unnecessary.” Some even said that BJP had started receiving negative feedback over its star campaigner Yogi Adityanath’s aggressive stand and the “Love Jihad” issue but “it was too late for the top brass to take corrective measures.”
“If we won Uttar Pradesh during Lok Sabha elections, it was because we promised development, governance, better law and order facilities. Also, large number of youth and dalits voted for us because of these promises. But then after four months, our voters realise that BJP is actually what is being alleged by other parties,” said a senior BJP leader from Uttar Pradesh.
BJP president Amit Shah reacted on the by-polls results on Wednesday and downplayed the disappointing performance of the party, saying that detractors have not noticed the party winning election for the first time in Assam and West Bengal.
“The cadres need not worry too much on the outcome of the byelections, the party will emerge victorious in the assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana, scheduled next month,” Mr Shah said in Karnataka while laying foundation stone for Gorta Martyr’s memorial and building of Sardar Patel statue in Bidar district.
