‘Overdependence on PM, CM led to complacency in UP BJP’

LUCKNOW: The BJP’s debacle in the recently held Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh was largely a result of party workers’ overdependence on the popularity of PM Narendra Modi and CM Yogi Adityanath which perceptibly detached them from the prevailing ground political situation, even as the opposition made heavy inroads into OBC and Dalit communities while consolidating the minority vote bank comprehensively.
That’s the crux of the exhaustive deliberations carried out by the UP BJP unit during a series of meetings with party national general secretary (organisation) BL Santhosh who was on a two-day visit to the state capital recently.
The saffron outfit’s tally plunged from 62 in 2019 to 33 this time, which has prompted the party brass to go back to the drawing board to draw a fresh outline of poll strategy.
Sources said that the state BJP brass told Santhosh that the party could not gauge the underlying anger and anti-incumbency against a host of sitting MPs who got disconnected with the ground.
“They solely relied on PM Modi and Yogi’s popularity to get them sail through. This seems to have boomeranged,” a senior BJP functionary told Santhosh. The BJP’s poll slogan of ‘abki baar 400 paar’, too, could not be explained precisely to the electorate even as the opposition drummed up the narrative of the “Constitution under threat”.
The party brass also observed that the committed workers seemingly got neglected because of one or the other reason. This got accentuated even as the BJP resorted to indiscriminate induction of candidates from other parties. A senior party functionary said that the newly inducted leaders, at times, overwhelmed the core BJP workers who, eventually, turned inactive and went into shell.
It has also been concluded that the Dalit and OBC vote base which the BJP consolidated over the last few years “veered” towards the opposition. This became much more evident with the loss in Ayodhya where SP’s Pasi candidate Awadhesh Prasad defeated BJP's Lallu Singh, a Thakur. Moreover, BJP’s tally in reserved seats shrunk from 15 in 2019 to just eight this time – clearly signifying the party's loosened grip on Dalits and OBC.
A senior BJP functionary said that the party desperately sought to win back OBC and SC/ST – the two together account for around 70% of the electorate – in a bid to counter SP's poll narrative of Pichhda (OBC), Dalit (SC/ST) and Alpsankhyak (minority).
UP BJP SC/ST Morcha chief Ram Chandra Kannaujia maintained that the party was poised to initiate a drive to consolidate Dalits as well as OBCs. He said that the SC/ST ministers of the Yogi cabinet and organisational leaders may hit the ground and start camping in the Dalit-dominated pockets.
Sources said that a host of Dalit leaders stressed on giving adequate representation to various SC sub-castes. For instance, out of 24 Rajya Sabha MPs from UP only two – Mithlesh Kumar and Brij Lal – are Dalit. Likewise, in the legislative council, only two – Lalji Nirmal and Surendra Chaudhary – out of 79 BJP MLCs come from Dalit background.