There won’t be a bloodshed this time for UP elections in 2022…

Background:

Uttar Pradesh — the most populous state of India with a population of more than 220 million people will have its assembly elections in April of next year. The current ruling party BJP has already started preparing for the battle of saving their government and doing rapid rounds of meetings and discussing possibilities meanwhile the main opposition parties of UP, mainly SP and BSP are still sleeping or not awake yet while INC is nowhere to be seen except on twitter, that too occasionally.

Last time, just for winning 2017 assembly elections Prime minister Modi nearly decimated Indian economy by announcing the infamous demonetization with just a 4 hour notice period. He announced it on 8 pm on 8th of November 2016, same day as USA started its miserable journey with Donald Trump. Within 4 hours, 86% of Indian currency bills were declared illegal and the majority of Indian economy which was dependent on cash for survival became bankrupt overnight. Government justified it with various excuses for why the decision was made, several reasons were mentioned that it was done to destroy counterfeit money, stop terrorism and naxalism and bring black money back. Modi gave this deluded dream to millions of grieving Indians that only rich will suffer and pay and this move was pro-poor, however opposite of it happened. Terrorism as well as naxalism rose, just a tiny amount of Black money was recovered a meagre 0.7% as most of the demonetized currency came back into the system and counterfeit money is still there in circulation with bills of larger denomination- easy to carry and transport. 157 people died in ATM lines and countless died in their homes for lack of funds for their medical treatments, countless died because of suicide as their businesses failed- nobody cares.

Later the government changed it’s goal post, especially finance minister who claimed that this move was done to make Indian economy cashless but after realizing that this would be impossible to achieve for 90% digitally illiterate public they modified the wordings to ‘less cash’ economy. The idea was to reduce cash-GDP ratio or circulation in the economy, however reports from last month made it very clear the cash in circulation in the economy is nearly two times that of the cash present before demonetization. All the goals listed and explained by Modi’s government failed miserably because this was a disastrous move economically made with ill-intent, poor thinking and negligible planning and foresight. Demonetization was done with one and only one aim — to win elections of Uttar Pradesh in 2017 by doing two things simultaneously

a) Spread the Propaganda and shine Modi’s Image of being a lone warrior fighting black money, corruption, terrorism and what not for betterment of poor Indians

b) ruin the cash stock(which is mostly black money) of opposition parties — SP, BSP.

Once the cash stock of opposition was destroyed it became very easy for the richest political party in the world to dominate the assembly elections won on Modi’s image and face — this will come in handy later. UP is such an important state for two reasons — it elects 80 Member of Parliament for general elections and also BJP, Modi’s party, started its political career with UP by demolishing a 400 year old mosque in name of Ram temple land dispute. A validation from UP would hugely boost confidence of BJP that India is ready to become a Hindu-Rashtra or Hindu state, which is wet dream of BJP hardcore supporters.

They won spectacularly with more than 75% of the seats out of 403 and at the time of choosing chief minister for state, RSS — the ideological mothership of BJP suggested a name unheard in UP politics, assembly politics at least — that of Ajay Bisht — popularly known as Yogi Adityanath, a 7 time member of parliament from Gorakhpur (UP) known for his hate speeches against muslims and christians and also one of — or used to be one of prime suspects of 2013 Hindu-Muslim riots of Muzzafarpur (UP) before his government quashed police investigations against himself and declared himself free of any crime. His hate speeches include things like killing 100 muslims for death of 1 hindu, retaliating in vilest manner possible or like raping corpses of muslim women from grave etc. Yogi was chosen to experiment with the sentiments of Hindi heartland which is considered stronghold of the BJP. He was given the crown of UP — a state so large that it will be 5th largest country in the world by population if separated from India, but it would be poorer than Somalia in terms of per capita income and human development index till this date.

Yogi ruled with iron fist, police encounters of ‘goons’ most of them happen to be muslim and he jailed dissidents, charged them with sedition — all the basic traits of ruling like a tyrant. He enjoyed power for well over 4 years and he was the poster boy of Hindu rashtra — many of his supporters believed and still believe him to be the successor of Prime Minister Modi. He is the dream man to lead Hindu rashtra, the best chief minister as per polls by pro-BJP news channels (90% News channels). He’s an extremist version of Modi, who himself is the extremist version of now forgotten Advani- one of BJP’s core founding member. Advani is living in shadows of Modi’s greatness and has been sidelined from national politics for a while now. Yogi is poster boy in every election, in every state election Yogi goes to campaign for BJP, his own state is in abysmal condition but he has audacity to criticize other states for having poor healthcare, education, law and order and anything and everything his own state is bad at. The role of Yogi as election campaigner is to polarize voters and pull Hindu voters towards vote for BJP.

Present Day:

Not only fans of Yogi but Yogi himself believes that he will be successor to Modi, although he won’t be, because Amit Shah, Modi’s second in command, is still the home minister and will carry on legacy of Modi in much more brutal way. UP is still the worst state as far as doing business is concerned while Modi was pro-business and friendly with corporates in his home state of Gujarat. Coming to present day crisis of UP and why I say there would be no bloodshed for UP this time — as there was demonetization and 2013 riots. It is because Yogi forgot that he did not win the election of UP in 2017, it was won on Modi’s face, his image. Yogi has won only his constituency and nothing else, while Modi won state election as well as majority (75+%) of state’s Parliamentary seats- Twice. Yogi wants to fight the upcoming election on 2022 on his face, while the top leadership of BJP — Amit Shah — the mastermind of every BJP strategy and victories is unhappy with Yogi’s handling of COVID-19 , especially in months of April and May 2021, where an estimated 800,000 people died in these two months alone, but the state’s recorded death is far lower — by 70–80 times. It is beyond criminal to not even count the deaths to save your image. Amit Shah thinks it was irresponsible of Yogi to not handle Covid well especially when the state elections are only a few months, usually it is that time of year where governments and politicians function in a way they are supposed to. Yogi is not alone in this though, every state has undercounted deaths, a 2–3 times undercount is still a tolerable error that might happen in moments of chaos, but an 80 times is huge — it is deliberate. People were suffering, they died because of lack of oxygen, lack of hospitals and Yogi did nothing but watch, hide data and jail those who raised questions against UP govt. Hundreds of thousands perished in dirt and were not even in recorded deaths, thousands of dead bodies were dumped in the Ganges, buried alongside coast of the holy river. Now those bodies are piling up.

Top leadership of BJP wants to change UP’s chief minister — they want more obedient and a face that unites upper caste votes (core vote bank of BJP) — unlike Yogi who has divided BJP vote between brahmins and thakurs. BJP wants to win election of UP but not on face of Yogi. If yogi wins state election by same margin like previously he will have a stature equal to Mr. megalomania himself — Prime Minister Modi and to Mr. Modi this is unimaginable and unthinkable. He will stop at nothing to portray himself as the greatest messiah of the world — or at least India has ever seen. Modi did not rally much for Madhya Pradesh (MP) in December 2018 assembly elections after they realized the Chief minister of MP would have same achievements as Modi if he wins the state election third time — which is the achievement that only Modi was capable of doing in his home state, that made him the face and prime ministerial candidate from BJP in 2014. They let congress win the state elections, which was won by a very thin margin, they let their opposition win just for sake of preserving the great image of Modi. They could have easily won election of MP in 2018 had they put in some efforts, had prime minister did more rallies and supported Shivraj Chauhan (MP’s chief minister) more, but they didn’t and they lost by a a very thin margin of 7 seats. Instead Modi and top BJP leadership focused on Rajasthan which they were sure they will lose but they tried anyway and didn’t lose as bad as it was expected of them and left MP completely in hands of Shivraj. It is BJP we are talking about, the party which will stop at nothing to occupy power even if they do not have majority . They have formed governments in states where they have lost elections badly— why would they give up MP so easily ? only logical explanation to all of that is they did not want Shivraj to be anywhere near Modi in terms of popularity, also Shivraj is from Advani’s camp, so there’s that. Modi further escalated his image after Shivraj lost the state when Amit Shah did his thing and the opposition government fell after 1 year and Shivraj was made CM again, this time by grace of his highness Modi— just at the time when Covid-19 Pandemic was taking its foothold in India. Modi did delay the process of lockdown for a few days just to have Shivraj sworn in as CM of MP, who now lives and dies by the praise of Modi and has stopped growing as a separate leader.

Similar thing is going to happen in Yogi’s UP, the top leadership of BJP will not support Yogi and will not go to the extent they did in 2017 or usually go to win elections. This time there would be no drastic economic move like demonetization, there would be no riots and no bloodshed — well it is far fetched to say no bloodshed, there would be lynching of muslims for sure. But apart from lynching things like riots won’t take place without the help of RSS — who itself is trying to fight for it’s own identity, lost under grand image of Modi.

It is evident that Yogi is also unhappy with the top leadership, 21st June 2021 was a day celebrated by Modi’s fanboys and supporters and ministers and his journalist bootlickers like nothing else. The greatest vaccination drive in India where 86 lakh people were vaccinate in a day (it is disputable how this goal was reached but that is matter for other article). Shivraj’s government in MP had highest number of vaccinated people — 17 lakhs. To reach this goal of 17 lakh jabs in a day, MP government was rationing vaccines like its paddy. MP government slowed down vaccination program for at least a week in order to have sufficient vaccine doses for event of 21 June. They usually vaccinate 2 lakh people every day but from past 1 week they were vaccinating only 40,000 per day, saving vaccines for the event. Shivraj did his best to shine Modi’s image and his own, but what did Yogi do? a half hearted attempt — UP government was vaccinating at pace of 4 lakh jabs a day. They did not ration much, they kept on going at their own phase like its some defiance and they managed to vaccinate only 7 lakh people which is more than 4 lakh but not as drastic as Shivraj’s efforts, remember it is Yogi who has to face elections in few months not Shivraj. Yogi is doing half hearted attempts, just enough to show that everything is okay within the party but also just enough to show that nothing is completely okay. If I am right, Yogi will have his own event like 21st June where he will vaccinate 1.5-2 million people as a show of defiance against Modi. Similarly, BJP will half heartedly attempt to win UP elections with Yogi’s face, and will try to have a close finish with the opposition parties. There is growing discontent amongst BJP’s own MLAs, who know the ground reality that people are not willing to accept Yogi for 2nd term. BJP is targeting SP and challenging it as main opposition while not speaking much against BSP. BJP is keeping its cards close and so is BSP, not speaking much against the BJP. They have a silent understanding that in case Yogi loses- which he most likely will, an alliance government of Mayawati’s BSP and BJP will be formed where BJP will have its desired chief minister with support from BSP. and in turn BJP will not haunt Mayawati for numerous cases of corruption against her. BJP will try to have its seats diminished and try not to win by huge margin.

Advani was the one who brought Modi into picture, he defended Modi when the then prime minister of India Mr. Vajpayee wanted him gone for his role in 2002 Gujarat pogroms. Advani paid for his mistake when Modi took over as candidate for prime minister and destroyed Advani’s dream of becoming prime minister. Modi is too careful to let that same mistake happen in form of Yogi. Modi won’t make mistakes of Advani. Only time will tell, the power game is on.