Two recent scenes from Uttar Pradesh—one from the Legislative Assembly and another from the Council—and one from Delhi captured the fratricidal war in the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Defending his bulldozer policy in the Assembly, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said he was not there to do a mere naukri (job) but to make the guilty pay.
“Yeh pratishtha ki ladai nahin hai. Mujhe pratistha prapt karni hoti toh usase jyada pratishtha apne mutt mein mil jaati hai (It’s not a fight for prestige. If I have to get prestige, I get more prestige in my mutt),” he said.
He almost sounded like Prime Minister Narendra Modi responding to the Opposition’s attack over demonetisation in 2016: “Jyaada se jyaada yeh mera kya kar lenge bhai? Arre hum toh fakir aadmi hain, jhola leke chal padenge ji.” In a nutshell, Modi didn’t care what the Opposition could do to him because he was an ascetic who could just pick up his bag and leave.
Only, Yogi wasn’t addressing the Opposition. His message was for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) high command as well as his Cabinet and party colleagues who have been sniping at him.
In another scene from the Legislative Council, Yogi’s rebellious deputies, Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak, were seen shaking hands after the Nazul Properties (Management and Utilization for Public Purposes) Bill was sent to the Select Committee. It was UP BJP president Bhupendra Chaudhary, a member of the Council, who demanded that the bill be sent to the committee.
The previous day, the Assembly had passed the bill, but not before two BJP MLAs—Sidharth Nath Singh and Harshvardhan Bajpai—and a NISHAD party legislator, an ally, embarrassed Yogi by raising objections. He had to yield to his party colleagues and let the bill be sent to the Select Committee, which effectively means that the ordinance on Nazul land will lapse.
The bill was to replace the ordinance that essentially prevented the conversion of government-owned land into private ownership. The BJP lawmakers opposing the bill claim that the government’s move would hurt the poor people settled on Nazul land. What they don’t say is how it will benefit the land mafia who have captured huge tracts of the land. These lawmakers were silent when the ordinance was brought in March.
Let’s look at the third scene, captured in a viral video clip from New Delhi. It was from Modi’s meeting with BJP CMs and deputy CMs. Yogi was seen greeting Defence Minister Rajnath Singh with folded hands, but not the PM or the HM.
History repeating itself in UP?
These three scenes are only the latest evidence of what’s a known secret: That Yogi is facing in 2024 what the late Kalyan Singh faced before he was unceremoniously replaced as UP CM in 1999.
There are striking similarities. Both were seen as Hindu Hriday Samrat, even as one is an unapologetic Kashatriya and the other a Lodh, belonging to other backward classes (OBCs). The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) loved both poster boys of Hindutva. Kalyan Singh faced rebellion from within the BJP and Yogi is also under siege from within.
Rajnath Singh, Kalraj Mishra, and Lalji Tandon led the group of Kalyan detractors who teamed up with Vajpayee to dislodge him from the CM’s chair. Twenty-five years later, the rebellion against Yogi is being led by his two deputies—Maurya and Pathak—and supported by many other Amit Shah loyalists in the party.
Alliance partners like the NISHAD party and the Apna Dal, brought into the NDA fold by Shah, have also started criticising Yogi’s policies. It was Sanjay Nishad, a minister in the Yogi-led government, who spoke about the misuse of bulldozers. The CM can’t even sack his minister, who has the BJP high command’s blessing.
Union Minister Anupriya Patel of the Apna Dal has been training her guns at the Yogi-led government since the Lok Sabha results—demanding withdrawal of the Nazul Land Bill, alleging bias in the appointment of OBC/SC/ST candidates in government jobs in UP, and flagging “illegal” collection of money at a toll plaza.
Ahead of the 1999 Lok Sabha elections, BJP’s 36 MLAs and four MLCs, in an act of open rebellion against Kalyan Singh, had submitted resignation letters to then-party president Kushabhau Thakre to try to force a change of guard in UP. Yogi has had to deal with the high command’s snipers all through. The BJP was silent about Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal’s claim that Yogi would be replaced if PM Modi got a third term. Its silence amounted to confirmation.
Kalyan Singh looked isolated in the party in the run-up to the 1999 Lok Sabha elections, as did Yogi in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
The results of these two elections were also strikingly similar. In 1999, the BJP ended up with 29 seats in UP—down by almost half from 57 in the 1998 polls. In 2024, the BJP has ended up with 33 seats in UP—down by almost half from 62 in the 2019 polls. The reduction in the BJP’s vote share in UP in these two elections, compared to the previous elections, was similar too—8.9 percentage points in 1999 and 8.2 percentage points in 2024.
Yogi is facing the same charges from detractors today that Kalyan Singh faced in 1999—inaccessible, autocratic, and neglectful of the organisation. Barely five weeks after the Lok Sabha results were out in October 1999, Kalyan Singh was replaced by Ram Prakash Gupta as UP CM.
Also read: Why is BJP doubling down on Hindutva? Modi-Shah have a different reading of 2024 result
How Yogi is different from Kalyan
So, is Yogi going to meet Kalyan Singh’s fate? While there are striking similarities between the events and circumstances of the two leaders, there are striking differences, too. To start with, Yogi looks relatively secure in his chair eight weeks after the poll results.
Kusum Rai, a young corporator close to Kalyan Singh, exposed him to many controversies and barbs from his detractors, denting his image. Yogi carries no such liability.
Kalyan Singh, like Yogi, became a Hindutva poster boy because the mosque in Ayodhya was demolished under his watch as the CM—but that’s about it. There was nothing to talk about his governance. Yogi has, however, emerged as a vikas purush or a man of development a la Modi, someone who has also made UP much safer by getting rid of dons and the mafia.
Yogi’s fan following transcends the Hindutva constituency. As head priest of Gorakhnath temple, Yogi has legions of followers of the Nath Panth (a Shaiva sub-tradition) across the country. Yogi is the second-most popular BJP leader in India after Modi, a stature Kalyan Singh didn’t have.
What’s also different is that the BJP high command in 2024 doesn’t enjoy the same clout that Vajpayee did in 1999. PM Vajpayee’s popularity was still on the rise then; PM Modi’s is on the wane. The BJP under Vajpayee had won 182 seats in 1999, the same as it secured in 1998. Under Modi, the BJP has seen its Lok Sabha tally fall by 63 seats in 2024.
Led by Vajpayee, BJP brought down Congress’s tally from 141 in 1998 to 114 in 1999. In 2024, the Congress’ Lok Sabha tally has almost doubled, showing signs of revival. Given how the voters in many states showed distrust in ‘Modi ki Guarantee’, the PM doesn’t wield the same moral authority to sack a powerful and popular CM as PM Vajpayee did in 1999.
More importantly, the BJP was still a party with a difference in 1999, with cadres and leaders putting a premium on ethical conduct and discipline. So there was not a whimper of protest when Vajpayee sacked Kalyan Singh as CM and when the party suspended and expelled him. No BJP MLA or MP went with Kalyan Singh when he floated a new party.
With ‘power at any cost’ having become the sole motto of the BJP today, there is no ideological or moral glue binding cadres and leaders with the party organisation. Even RSS cadres distanced themselves in the last Lok Sabha elections.
In 1999, Kalyan Singh had gone too far. He challenged Vajpayee’s authority, making it difficult for even the RSS to defend the celebrity OBC face of Hindutva. In 2024, Yogi comes across as a victim. It’s getting increasingly obvious that the campaign against him is meant to get rid of a future prime ministerial contender.
What Yogi said in the Assembly last Thursday was a sign of defiance and a virtual dare to his rivals. If the worst comes to the worst, he has his mutt to return to. He won’t be reined in. he won’t back down. And he won’t make way for someone else.
DK Singh is Political Editor at ThePrint. He tweets @dksingh73. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)