2022 will be an interesting year for India as several key electoral battleground states will go for their respective assembly poll which will set the stage for the politicians and political parties across the country to start preparing for the 18th general election to be held in mid-2024. States going to polls in the early part of 2022 includes Hindi heartland states of Uttar Pradesh (UP), Uttarakhand, Goa and Punjab, and the North-eastern state of Manipur. The year will then be culminated with an election in another crucial battleground state of Gujarat, the home state of the current prime minister and union home minister, in November-December (if go according to the schedule) where the ruling BJP will seek from the people of the state an unprecedented six consecutive terms for ruling the state. This means by the end of the year 2022 the country will not only be able to assess, by reading the outcome of the polls in these states, whether the ruling BJP could be in a position to retain power in New Delhi in 2024 for a record third consecutive terms but also the potential next-generation leader in the BJP to replace the current indispensable Modi-Shah dispensation.
UP will be the most crucial state for both the ruling party and its allies and the opposition parties, including the Congress Party, given the strength of numbers the state command in both the state legislative assembly and Indian parliament. For any political party, the surest path to attaining political power in New Delhi is through UP. In other words, UP is the main bellwether state in India’s electoral politics where the trends in the state normally indicate the overall voting behaviours in the country; meaning whichever way UP goes the whole of India generally goes, if not follows. UP election, expected to take place this coming March-April, therefore will be one consequential political event for the year 2022 for which political observers across the country and students of Indian politics cannot afford to ignore.
For the ruling BJP, the election in UP and its outcome could set the stage for the anointing of one popular Hindutva poster boy as the next generation undisputed leader of the party. A new power center, independent of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, is already emerging within the BJP. Ever since his foray into India’s electoral politics in 1998 at the age of 26, Yogi Adityanath, a saffron-clad Hindu monk, has been building his career as a mass and acceptable leader while at the same time remaining himself as head priest of Gorakhnath Math, a Hindu temple in Gorakhpur district in Eastern UP making him a larger-than-life persona for his supporters and loyalists. And it is this strange equation between politics and religion taking place in Eastern UP for the last two decades that is shaping the destiny of the man called Yogi Adityanath and that very equation is paving the way for him towards attaining political power in New Delhi.
Yogi’s rise to prominence has had a striking resemblance with Modi’s own rise within the BJP and in national politics. Yogi is, from all practical counts, a stranger to New Delhi’s elite politics. Narendra Modi and Yogi belong to a rare breed of Indian politicians who derives their power and popularity directly from the people at the grassroots and not by lobbying with or showing loyalty to the already established national leaders from New Delhi. Remember, Yogi does not belong to a group of new generation BJP leaders groomed by party founders Atal Behari Vajpayee and LK Advani from New Delhi. He is a man of his own. And even when BJP was facing its worst electoral fortune in UP and nationally when it was in opposition for ten years (2004-2014), Yogi’s popularity remain unaffected just as Narendra Modi remain popular among the grassroots’ party workers and supporters across the country. Yogi remains undefeated since he was first elected as an MP in 1998 from Gorakhpur Parliamentary Constituency in Eastern UP and went on to win five consecutive parliamentary elections until he became chief minister of the state in 2017.
Yogi’s path to assuming leadership of the party at the national level may not be smooth, due to the availability of a plethora of young and popular leaders in the saffron party but it would become inevitable if he can assert his position as an undisputed leader in UP. Retaining UP this year under his leadership will certainly cement his position as BJP supremo-in-waiting towards eventually taking over from Modi and Amit Shah in the next era.
Yogi as a leader or the BJP’s next prime ministerial face can help the saffron party in two ways: in the person of Yogi, the people of UP will see the prospect of having another person from the state to become prime minster which will generate excitement and enthusiasm among not only the party supporters in the state but the people of the state at large. He would also help the BJP in consolidating a large Hindu vote bank across the nation. After Modi, it would not be Amit Shah but Yogi who could become a new poster boy for the RSS and saffron forces. Amit Shah hitherto is popularly known to the country only as a master poll strategist and election manager; he is yet to prove himself to the country that he is also a popular leader acceptable to the masses. Yogi and his popularity, on the other hand, could be the next saffron’s best bet in ensuring that the saffron grip in Indian politics will remain. In such a present time where the country is already politically and communally polarized, Yogi could be the personality for the saffron party to be used for consolidating the support of the majority religious group of India.
For the opposition parties, 2022 provides them a historic opportunity to put up a unified and cohesive battle against the formidable saffron party. If the oppositions could trouble the ruling party in this year’s ensuing series of elections in crucial states it can help them to present themselves to the country as a viable alternative to the saffron forces and serious contenders for power in New Delhi in 2024. But if they cannot take on BJP and defeat them in these bellwether states, they would not be in a position to take on BJP in any other election at least for some years to come, and election in 2024 would be another walkover for the saffron party.
Dr. Nsungbemo Ezung
Wokha Town