Tacit ‘Hindutva’ signal from BJP before UP polls

The Bharatiya Janata Party has not only sent a clear political message by holding its national executive in Uttar Pradesh, where crucial Assembly elections are due early 2017, but also a subtle “Hindutva” message.

Allahabad, the venue, is a famous pilgrimage spot, hailed as “Tirthraj Prayag”. It is also one of the venues for the Kumbh Mela. Though development will be one of the BJP’s key poll planks in the high-stakes electoral battle, Sangh Parivar affiliates are all set to play the “soft Hindutva card”.

The Bharatiya Janata Party top brass is also expected to chart out strategies and formally ask its leaders and cadre to be ready for the coming contest.

They are likely to attack the ruling SP over the state’s deteriorating law and order situation, like in Mathura, and target Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party over corruption charges at the two-day meeting that starts Sunday.

With the Ram Mandir issue no longer a vote-catching formula, the Sangh Parivar is targeting the “Hindutva” vote base in the state along with the numerically dominant backward castes. Sources said the Bharatiya Janata Party has asked its UP unit to compile a list of “sadhus, saints and pujaris” across the state, who constitute one of its major votebanks. The Bharatiya Janata Party cadre will reach out and ask this group to not only “vote for sure” but also to mobilise support.

In UP, the Bharatiya Janata Party won 71 of the state’s 80 parliamentary seats in 2014, but has been out of power in Lucknow since 2002. The SP and BSP are the dominant forces in UP.

With the polls approaching, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and other Sangh outfits, including the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal, are holding events, shivirs and meetings, but not yet on a “massive scale” in a bid to avoid controvery. The RSS will hold a “shiksha varg” camp in Mulayam Yadav’s home district Etawah for the first time soon.