How PM Modi is scripting BJP’s 2017 UP election campaign
Narendra Modi's visit to Saharanpur on 26 May was seen as a soft launch of BJP's electoral campaign in Uttar Pradesh
New Delhi: Even though the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh are a year away, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not missing a single trick to target potential voters in the state. Modi has visited Uttar Pradesh at least 10 times in the last one year.
The state will be critical for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in retaining the political momentum that has swung its way again after the historic victory in Assam.
The UP assembly polls are due in May 2017 and the BJP is hoping to repeat its 2014 Lok Sabha election performance in the state when the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won 73 out of the 80 Lok Sabha seats. In a way, the state was instrumental in electing Modi to office. However, strong regional players—the incumbent Samajwadi Party and the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party—are also expected to play a crucial role.
The latest visit of Modi to Saharanpur, which came on 26 May on the second anniversary of the NDA government at the Centre, was seen as a soft launch of BJP’s electoral campaign in the state. Modi chose UP to celebrated the first anniversary of the NDA government as well, by holding a public meeting in Mathura.
Interestingly, in May alone, Modi has visited UP, thrice. Apart from Saharanpur, the other two visits were in Ballia, where he launched the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana which aims to provide LPG cylinders to the poor, and in Varanasi, to launch solar-powered boats to help clean the Ganga.
“I pity those who try to find political reasons for launching the scheme in UP’s Ballia; people are insinuating that the move is aimed at winning elections in the state, however I recently launched many initiatives in states like Jharkhand and Haryana, those states are not poll-bound. I chose Ballia for the launch of this scheme because it has the lowest percentage of households with cooking gas connections,” Modi said in Ballia on 1 May, after launching the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana.
Similarly, Modi also launched another flagship programme of the government, Stand Up India, from Noida on 6 April. The NDA government is using the scheme to help Dalits (scheduled caste), women, and scheduled tribe (ST) entrepreneurs by providing bank loans.
Among other places in Uttar Pradesh that Modi visited in the last one year are Meerut, Sarsawa and Lucknow. He visited Varanasi, which is his constituency, twice earlier during the year.
Recently, the BJP leadership announced that the party will not form an alliance with any regional political party and instead will contest the Uttar Pradesh election on its own.
The change in strategy will be interesting because the BJP joined hands with Apna Dal, an eastern Uttar Pradesh-based regional party, during the Lok Sabha elections in 2014.
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First Published:31 May 2016, 11:04 AM IST
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