In U.P. campaign, BJP to make ‘decisive, honest’ Modi-Yogi pitch
NEW DELHI: BJP government in UP has designed a campaign to project its image as damdaar (decisive) and imaandar (honest). Ahead of the assembly polls scheduled for early 2022, the election campaign, which will include social media outreach, will be pivoted on the “accomplishments” of the “Modi-Yogi partnership” said a person aware of the details.
NEW DELHI: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Uttar Pradesh has designed a campaign to project its image as damdaar (decisive) and imaandar (honest).
Ahead of the assembly elections scheduled for early 2022, the election campaign, which will include social media outreach, will be pivoted on the “accomplishments” of the “Modi-Yogi partnership” said a person aware of the details.
The Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh has been criticised for its inadequate preparedness for the second wave of the pandemic which left over 18,000 dead in the state according to union government data. The state faced an acute shortage of hospital beds, oxygen and other essential medical supplies that exacerbated the pandemic conditions.
To be sure, UP’s current case fatality rate is, at 1.3%, on par with the national number of 1.3%, and medical infrastructure in almost all states was overwhelmed by the ferocity and intensity of the second wave – caused largely by the delta variant of the virus, which is now raging through the US – that took everyone by surprise.
Still, like many other states, UP is also believed to have undercounted its dead. According to a June 21 report by news website Article 14, which analysed death registration data from the state’s 24 districts, UP registered around 197,000 excess fatalities during the pandemic period (July 2020-March 2021) over the pre-pandemic average – around 42 times the state’s official Covid death toll in the time period.
To counter the charges against its systemic deficiencies that came to light during the second wave, and more recently with the death of children (from a mystery viral fever, not Covid) in Firozabad, the state government is bringing out a report card to list its achievements in the past five years and how its performance compares favourably to the previous government’s.
“The party has decided to use social media content in the form of snippets, videos and cartoons to deliver the message of how the Yogi government fulfilled its promise of cracking down on crime and corruption and creating jobs,” said a party functionary who asked not to be named.
To illustrate its accomplishments, the Fark Saaf Hai (the difference is clear) campaign has also been sharpened for social media dissemination. The party claims it has met most of the promises it made in its election manifesto. “In the last 70 years, there were just 12 medical colleges in the state; after the BJP came to power, in the last four years, 48 medical colleges have been set up. Of these, 23 medical colleges have already begun functioning, nine will be inaugurated soon and construction of 16 will begin soon,” the functionary added.
Former Rajya Sabha MP and Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Javed Ali Khan, however, said the figures are incorrect. He said during SP rule, there were already over 30 medical colleges functioning in the state.
Part of this comparison will be the Bhoole Toh Nahi (don’t forget) campaign where the party will recall incidents of crime committed when the Akhilesh Yadav government was in power.
To blunt the criticism over the continued crimes against women, the state has listed steps such as setting up 1,535 women help desks in police stations across the state, ensuring a response within 10 minutes to distress calls made through the helpline number 112 and, how as part of its “mission” to curb crime, the state has made 8,000 arrests and filed several cases against criminals.
“The state has been able to take action in at least 13,000 cases under the Gangster Act, property worth Rs 1,800 crore that belonged to various mafia dons and criminals has been attached by the government. Cyber security cells have been set up in all 75 districts to strengthen the drive against crime in the state,” the BJP functionary said.
The Opposition, however, dubbed these claims as hollow. Khan said the first promise that the party had made in its election manifesto was to create 700,000 jobs and double the income of farmers. “It has failed on both fronts, can they give us a list of even 350,000 jobs that were created?. As for decline in the crime rate, all one has to do is read the news reports from the ground; every day there are incidents of rape, abductions and dacoity in daylight. The national crime record bureau data belies their claims,” he said.
As per the National Crime Records Bureau data of 2019, UP recorded the third-highest number of cases of crime against women after West Bengal and Maharashtra.
In 2020, the UP government had claimed that crimes such as murder and rape had come down during the tenure of the Yogi government. Citing NCRB data, the government claimed that the number of murders in the state fell from 2,762 in 2016 to 2,032, and there was a reduction of 39% in instances of rape.