What makes BJP believe it can do so? One must remember that when the BJP-led alliance had won 73 of the 80 seats in UP in 2014 in a historic verdict, it was riding big on the Narendra Modi wave. In 2019, the opposition parties SP and BSP joined forces in UP but could bring the NDA down only marginally — to 64 seats.
This time, the BJP believes it is riding firmly on the double-engine of Modi and Yogi, with the chief minister’s popularity adding to the PM’s enduring enigma in UP. This belief has been bolstered by the 2022 Uttar Pradesh win — which many see as a rare case in the Modi-era BJP of a party chief minister retaining power largely on his own strength.
The opening of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya next January will be another ace up the BJP’s sleeve in the 2024 elections.
“Besides Mainpuri and Sambhal, BJP is in a winnable position in every Lok Sabha seat in UP in 2024,” a senior party leader told me, pointing to BJP’s significant Lok Sabha by-poll wins in the Samajwadi Party strongholds of Azamgarh and Rampur last July. “If SP lost in Azamgarh and Rampur, where will it win?” he asked.
Late Mulayam Singh Yadav’s legacy in Mainpuri, a seat it won in the recent by-poll, and the dynamics of Sambhal give Samajwadi Party a chance there. BJP believes it would dislodge Congress from Rae Bareli, which is held by Sonia Gandhi, and Mayawati’s BSP would not win any seat. She won 10 seats in 2019 after allying with the SP.
2019 Lessons & Bulldozer Baba
The odds were stacked against the BJP in Uttar Pradesh in the 2019 general elections. Arch-rivals SP and BSP joined hands and Akhilesh Yadav declared from the stage that the alliance would sweep UP and stop Narendra Modi from becoming the PM again. Some in the alliance even projected Mayawati as the next prime minister.
But defeating the conventional wisdom of electoral arithmetic, the NDA alliance only dropped nine seats from 2014, and won 64 out of 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh. SP and BSP soon parted ways, with Mayawati blaming SP for the poor performance though BSP won 10 Lok Sabha seats. Both parties have vowed never to ally again.
Many in the BJP attributed the 2019 performance to the continuing ‘Modi magic’ in UP and people warming up to the two-year rule of Yogi Adityanath as chief minister since 2017, with a no-nonsense crackdown on crime and gangsters in UP, police encounters in West UP and closure of illegal slaughterhouses.
Yogi Adityanath built on his ‘strong CM’ image post 2019 with the most significant entry being of the ‘bulldozer’, which virtually became an election symbol for the BJP in Uttar Pradesh in the 2022 state elections. CM Yogi made the election a virtual referendum on his performance on law and order in the state.
BJP made a historic return to power in UP, with Samajwadi Party being unable to enforce the cyclic change of power in UP for over three decades.
BJP’s vote share in Uttar Pradesh has consistently hovered over the 40 per cent mark since the 2014 general elections when BJP secured 42.6 per cent votes. In 2017 assembly elections, BJP secured 40 per cent vote share, it rose to nearly 50 per cent in 2019 and stood at over 41 per cent in the 2022 state elections.
Yogi Means Business
Embellishing his ‘Bulldozer Baba’ image, the chief minister has focussed on making UP an ‘investor magnet’ in his current term, with the upcoming Global Investors Summit this month at centre-stage. Speaking to News18 on Sunday, Yogi Adityanath said UP will get investment proposals worth more than the state’s GDP as UP’s law and order has changed the perception of every person.
Creating jobs and boosting economic growth are now top on the CM’s agenda. This coupled with a liberal Hindutva dose and opening of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya next January could make BJP unassailable in UP.
A listless BSP and an absent Congress could leave the Samajwadi Party as the only challenger in 2024. But it may not be enough to stop the Modi-Yogi double engine.
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