After scare, BJP plans to reconnect with voters
LUCKNOW: A day after the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) blamed the BJP’s handling of cadres for the reverses in by-polls on Gorakhpur and Phulpur parliamentary seats, a blame game started among the party leaders on Thursday.
Some BJP leaders admitted that the loss in Gorakhpur rankled the party more than Phulpur which was won for the first time in 2014.
They said the twin losses had hurt the BJP that was set to celebrate the Yogi Adityanath government’s one year in office on March 19.
The leaders claimed the celebrations would be held but the organisation had tweaked it to ensure that the party connected with the rural UP afresh, especially the villages dominated by OBCs and Dalits.
Denying the claims, UP BJP general secretary Vijay Bahadur Pathak, who was on a tour to Bhadohi and Mirzapur, said it should not be linked to the by-poll results.
“Our tours were chalked out in advance. It has nothing to do with by-poll results. But we would be more focused on the 2019 Lok Sabha elections,” Pathak said. However, leaders privy to the developments in the BJP claimed the party was planning to organise ‘samrasta’ (social harmony) meets with the help of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP).
Ministers would also be a part of the BJP’s outreach initiative, they confirmed.
BJP leader Ramakant Yadav, who has been in both the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), sounded a warning to the party.
“BJP needs to take care of OBCs and Dalits if it wants to do well in the Lok Sabha elections,” he said. BJP MP Shyama Charan Gupta claimed that the remarks made by minister Nand Gopal Gupta Nandi against BSP chief
The party needs to take care of OBCs and the Dalits if it wants to do well in 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Their neglect is one of the causes behind loss
RAMAKANT YADAV, BJP leader Nandi’s remarks describing Mulayam as demon king Ravana and Mayawati as ‘suparanakha too played a part in the defeat SHYAMA CHARAN GUPTA, BJP MP
Mayawati and SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav antagonised the OBCs and Dalits in the by-polls.
“The SP’s win has given strength to the SP-BSP unity, a prospect that the party had tried hard to avoid. The caste matrix of UP is such that a combination of Dalit-OBC chemistry with Muslim support makes it a potential combination,” a BJP leader, who did not wish to be named, said.
A BJP strategist said a fresh jaati-todo (end caste equations) campaign would be required to defeat the caste calculations of the SP and the BSP.
Irshad Ilmi, editor of Kanpurbased Urdu daily ‘Siyasat’, said: “The BJP government deliberately engaged in Hindutva politics to polarise majority votes. Now, the prospect of a SP-BSP alliance is in the making and the Congress will surely be a part of it in 2019. The alliance threatens to neutralise Hindutva with a Bihar-type caste ‘mahagathbandhan’.”