For the BJP in UP, it’s religion again

It is interesting that after two years of the BJP-led government at the Centre helmed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose leitmotif was supposed to be “development” with the principal slogan of “sab ka saath, sab ka vikas”, the saffron party appears so keen yet again to rely on its age-old tactic of Hindu mobilisation before a major poll battle.

The UP Assembly election is about a year away, but the preparations have begun in right earnest in the BJP camp. In the Lok Sabha poll of 2014, the party won as many as 71 of the 80 seats in the state, a record not easy to surpass. But in the state Assembly election of 2012, BJP brought up the rear along with the Congress.

How to bridge this gap That is the question before the saffron leadership. If UP is not won, the legitimacy of the Modi regime for the remainder of its term will suffer, especially since the PM is a member of the Lok Sabha from the state. Mr Modi, his satellite Amit Shah, the BJP president, and the RSS cadres, who will have to run the campaign, are taking no chances.

Their adherents and various Sangh Parivar outfits have begun raking up the Dadri beef controversy, even if this betrays signs of desperation. While the murder of the Muslim villager Akhlaq by Hindutva mobs some months ago allegedly for eating or storing beef has gone unpunished, saffron groupies are now trying to get Akhlaq’s relatives booked for cow slaughter. If there can be a travesty of justice, this is a clear instance. But BJP’s poll managers are unfazed.

The party has been out of power in UP since 2002 and is hoping to cash in on Mr Modi’s name to get into the saddle in Lucknow next year, though this strategy came a cropper in the local bodies election in the district area of Varanasi, the PM’s constituency, last year.

Obviously, the BJP is nervous before the Assembly poll. Since local UP politics is badly cut up on caste lines, the saffronites apparently calculate — and desperately hope — that the religious card will yield dividend. As a news report in this newspaper suggests, a massive effort is being mounted to rope in the so-called sadhu-sant — the saffron-robed heads of various Hindu denominations — and the pujaris or temple priests in UP to transmit the BJP message at the ground level.

This appeal to faith has also become necessary because not much has happened on the development front in spite of the poll promises in the last Lok Sabha election. “Achche din” look to be a far cry. Opposition-bashing can only go thus far. What remains evergreen is BJP’s and RSS’ Hindutva agenda.