Caste arithmetic and development plank will be the BJP’s calculation for the 2017 Assembly election in the State. But the most crucial factor will be its chief ministerial candidate. Delay in announcing it can be fatal
If reports that Rajnath Singh will be the Bharatiya Janata Party’s face in the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election campaign get confirmed, it will not come as a surprise. The caveat here, of course, is, this will not necessarily formalise his chief ministerial candidature; that issue is still tantalisingly open. The senior Cabinet Minister does not appear wholly enthusiastic about returning to State politics, though he can certainly be expected to abide by party directives.
Nonetheless, as the driving force behind the electoral campaign, Rajnath Singh will have many advantages which few leaders of the BJP from Uttar Pradesh can boast of. The first is his experience in both Government and organisation. He has served as the Chief Minister of the State, Union Minister, and national president of the party. His performance in these high-profile assignments has been creditable — in most opinion polls recently conducted, he has fared well in public perception as the incumbent Minister for Home Affairs; the BJP won the 2014 lok Sabha election under his presidentship, and his stint as Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister (and earlier as a Minister in Kalyan Singh’s regime) is remembered for its dose of good governance.
The second advantage he enjoys is that of a high stature, which comes partly from the assignments he has handled and partly from his connect with the party workers and the people. In a State party unit ridden with factionalism and weighed down by a sense of despondency which comes with being out of power for more than two decades now, Rajnath Singh is seen as someone who has the capacity to unite and inject enthusiasm. Factional leaders respect him and would be willing to listen to him because they appreciate his understanding of ground realities. They would be prepared to forge understandings with one another under his guidance for the party’s larger good in view of the coming election.
And his third advantage is his caste. With the BJP having recently appointed a member of the Other Backward Class community as its State party unit chief, there has been talk that the party will now reach out to its traditional upper caste voters. If Rajnath Singh, a Kshatriya, becomes the party’s face in Uttar Pradesh, it will gladden the hearts of voters of his upper caste community in particular and the higher castes in general. It would not be surprising if in the days to come, the party offer important roles to senior leaders from the Brahmin community as well.
Here, thus, we arrive at what is arguably the most challenging task that all parties face in Uttar Pradesh: How best to address the caste conundrumIJ The caste cauldron is always boiling in the State, and it begins to overflow in the run-up to an election. The BJP will need to find the right balance at the right time and in the right constituency in case it hopes for a fighting chance against caste-based parties such as the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party. Nobody understands the challenge better than Rajnath Singh, and given that he will certainly be a key strategist of the party’s Uttar Pradesh election campaign, his inputs will be critical in deciding the party’s action plan.
It is natural for all parties including the BJP to concentrate on the OBC segment because that is the single largest bloc — though it doesn’t vote en bloc. From the BJP’s perspective, the Yadav community will largely stick to the Samajwadi Party in the State election, regardless of the fact that a large percentage voted for the BJP (for Narendra Modi actually) in the 2014 lok Sabha poll; the Muslim vote will get divided between the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party (while it appears for the moment that the latter has the edge, the BJP cannot count on their support in general); the Dalits will go with the Bahujan Samaj Party (with a section possibly voting for the BJP); and the non-Yadav OBC voters will largely back the BJP. Given the scenario, what can tilt the balance is the direction the upper castes go.
This assumes all the more significance for the BJP because the Congress is shoring up its plans to regain influence there. The Congress’s new strategist, Prashant Kishor, who had worked with the BJP in the 2014 election and with Nitish Kumar to craft the latter’s win in Bihar, is now burning the midnight oil to wean the upper castes to the Congress’s side. The upper castes have been migratory in nature over the years, largely shifting from the Samajwadi Party to the Bahujan Samaj Party and back to the former. The two-way movement is because they had been left with no other option following the loss of stature in Uttar Pradesh of their ‘natural’ parties — the BJP and the Congress over the past two decades. Since the BJP wouldn’t want the Congress to grab this floating vote, it has to reach out to the section — and this is where Rajnath Singh can be of use.
There are, of course, other upper caste influential leaders in the party, such as Mahesh Sharma and Yogi Adityanath, but the advantage they bring to the table gets virtually neutralised by their polarising nature. Polarisation may work in certain constituencies but it can also take away votes from the party across the State. Rajnath Singh, despite his one-time hardliner image, is today seen as a moderate.
None of this, however, provides an answer to the million-dollar question: Who will be the BJP’s chief ministerial candidateIJ The lazy way out for the party to deal with the issue is to simply not announce a candidate. This can be fatal given that both the regional parties have clear leaders in Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati, and that the Congress, in a fit of desperation may rope in Priyanka Vadra as the party’s leading light in the Uttar Pradesh election. Will it be an outlier like Varun Gandhi (his freshness and youth are an advantage, but his equations with the BJP central leadership remain speculative; they are not said to be in the pink of health), or will it be an ‘outsider’ like Smriti Irani or Uma Bharti (both being feisty politicians who get as good as they get, and this will really delight the rambunctious voters of Uttar Pradesh), or will it eventually be a tested but for-now reluctant warhorse like Rajnath Singh (in case a consensus eludes the party’s senior leadership)IJ
(The writer is a senior journalist and commentator)