With over 200 election rallies under his belt, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has been the top campaigner in UP assembly elections. Besides poll meetings, Yogi addressed a series of nukkad sabhas and led road shows in several assembly constituencies.
The chief minister addressed the last election rally in Azamgarh’s Atraulia, a constituency that the Bharatiya Janata Party has never won. By addressing five public meetings on the last day of canvassing, Yogi crossed the 200-mark.
On their part, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also completed a century in addressing election rallies while Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati addressed rallies at divisional headquarters.
Over a month-long campaign spread across seven phases was marked by slogans like `Jinnah, Ganna, Lal topi -- red alert, bulldozers, linking of cycle with terror and other planks raised by the BJP leaders.
Akhilesh hit back at Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath saying, "Till now we were calling him Baba Mukhymantri, one of the newspaper called him Baba Bulldozer. It’s not me who has given this name.”
Meanwhile, a senior BJP leader said, "Yogi visited nearly every assembly constituency in this election -- some were visited by him before the Model Code of Conduct came into force for the polls. It is one of the most expansive campaigns by any chief minister and a special focus of the party has been on constituencies it has never won or had lost narrowly in the 2017 elections."
Yogi addressed nearly 3-4 rallies and held road shows daily since the last week of January after the names of candidates and constituencies were finalised.
The campaign was marked by his '80-20' rhetoric starting from western UP, attacks on SP chief Akhilesh Yadav and mention of "bulldozer campaign" against the mafia. Towards the end of the electioneering in eastern UP, bulldozers were even parked at Yogi’s rally venues to reinforce the message.
Throughout the campaign, the chief minister exuded confidence that his party would again cross the 300 seats mark while some of his colleagues privately said that the saffron party would form the next government albeit with a lower tally -- 230 to 250.
In 2017, the BJP had won 312 of the total 403 assembly seats and several BJP leaders said that the number was bound to come down. 'Par aayenge to Yogi hi (but Yogi will return to power),' was the refrain from most BJP leaders.
Another BJP leader said that the number of seats did not matter anymore and a win would be a win.
"One must remember that none of the strong UP chief ministers in the last three decades, be it Kalyan Singh, Rajnath Singh, Mulayam Singh Yadav or Akhilesh Yadav, were never re-elected,” Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had pointed this in a rally this week, saying that no government has been able to get a second consecutive term in UP in the last 30-40 years, but the BJP is set to do this.
The BJP leaders say the 'cyclical nature' of UP politics does not hold water anymore as the narrative has changed since 2014 under Narendra Modi as the prime minister and a new 'beneficiary' class of voters emerging in Uttar Pradesh.
The counting of votes on March 10 will determine the truth of these conflicting claims. If the BJP wins the election, then Yogi will emerge as a tall leader and the same holds true for SP chief Akhilesh Yadav.