New Delhi: With leads in 262 seats and a voteshare of 41.9 per cent according to the Election Commission of India website, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is all set to form the government in Uttar Pradesh.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s second consecutive term in office is likely to have a bearing on the existing power dynamics in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Even though the Adityanath-led BJP has retained power with a reduced majority — they won 312 seats in 2017 — the fact is that this is the first time since 1985 that a ruling party has got a second consecutive term in UP, and the first time ever that a chief minister has got a renewed mandate after completing a full five-year term in office.
That gives Yogi the political heft to likely assert himself in the BJP.
“So far, the central leadership is PM Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. They are the ones who take decisions regarding all crucial issues. Even in the UP election, PM Modi’s stamp was visible all across. But the UP victory will now give the much-needed push to CM Yogi, to assert himself not only as a chief minister but also as a senior leader who will also have a say in crucial decisions,” said a senior BJP leader.
Yogi Adityanath is known to be assertive. After the election results were out in 2017 and BJP MLAs were meeting at Lok Bhawan to choose the CM candidate, his supporters came outside and raised slogans in favour of Adityanath.
Unlike other BJP CMs who looked up to the Centre for guidance, Adityanath ran his administration his way, without allowing any intervention by the party’s central leadership.
For example, a bureaucrat close to PM Modi, A.K. Sharma, took premature retirement to join the BJP in UP, and was expected to join the Yogi cabinet. The chief minister, however, had his way as he kept Sharma out after prolonged negotiations with the central leadership over his cabinet reshuffle.
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Backing of RSS
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has been consistently backing Yogi. It’s a known secret that Manoj Sinha, now Jammu & Kashmir L-G, was the BJP central leadership’s choice as UP CM in 2017, but the RSS intervened in favour of Yogi Adityanath — someone who didn’t have a Sangh background but who was known to be a Hindutva hardliner.
In this election, too, the RSS was pulling out all stops to ensure a second term for Yogi.
The first step towards Yogi’s elevation in the party hierarchy is likely to be his induction in the party’s parliamentary board, where the only chief minister who is a member is Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
“The parliamentary board is all powerful and after the demise of Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley, other leaders had to be accommodated. Yogi Adityanath’s inclusion/non-inclusion will send a big message across the party,” said another BJP leader.
“So far, CM Yogi has been restricted to Uttar Pradesh. Though he has been a star campaigner, he has largely been kept out of central decisions of the party. However, this win may force the BJP leadership to accommodate him in taking larger policy decisions,” this leader added.
(Edited by Saikat Niyogi)
Also read: Exit poll results: AAP sweeps Punjab; BJP to retain UP, Manipur; rest hung