NEW DELHI: In an indication that the BJP is growing wary of the prospects of facing another Bihar like grand alliance in the poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, the party chief Amit Shah remained closeted with senior leaders on Tuesday for a last minute re-think on names of candidates for remaining constituencies in the state. Sensing that the unveiling of a grand alliance led by the Samajwadi Party under the leadership of the chief minister Akhilesh Yadav is imminent, the BJP appears to have gone into a tizzy, as a group of party leaders rushed to the Election Commission to demand “seizing” of the official symbol of the Congress on the grounds that the party vice president Rahul Gandhi had made a religious appeal during a speech. The BJP leaders also rushed in to make a pitch that the UP polls would be on the plank of the clouts of three families versus the development agenda espoused by the saffron outfit.
“With the SP-Congress-RLD alliance now on the cards, the BJP has to take a fresh look at the possible rival candidates, as the electoral scene has taken a definitive and dramatic change, which is against the earlier calculations of the party. Now, the BJP has to face up to the challenge of the SP-RLD-Congress joint front especially in the western and eastern UP. The BJP chief held strategy meeting in the day to deliberate on candidates best suited for the new challenge,” said a senior BJP functionary, who added that the meeting of the Central Election Committee scheduled for the day had to be postponed due to the change in the political situations.
However, the BJP national secretary Siddharth Nath Singh argued, while speaking to EXPRESS, that the Bihar like grand alliance in UP is not possible, as the Mayawati led BSP remains outside the plan of scheme scripted by the state chief minister. “Bihar Assembly elections in 2015 were between the two camps – JD (U), RJD and Congress against the NDA. But UP is setting up for a triangular contest. Furthermore, the SP led alliance is of rejected parties, who were routed in the 2014 polls,” said Singh.
The BJP is also seeking to exploit the bitter campaign of the Congress “27 saal UP behaal (UP in ruins for 27 years)” to touch upon the inner contradictions within the yet to be unveiled alliance of three parties. “The Congress ran the campaign for months, which also included the five years of the Akhilesh Yadav government. Will the Congress explain how does the situation change overnight?” Singh asked, while adding that “the three parties are run by families (Akhilesh Yadav, Rahul Gandhi and Ajit Singh) and they have come together in desperation against the development agenda of the BJP”.
The BJP delegation consisting of Bhupinder Yadav and Siddharth Nath Singh called on the EC to argue that if the panel did not take action against the Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi for suggesting that the religious significance of the party’s official symbol it would send a bad precedent for others even while the Supreme Court has clearly given its ruling against such overtures. “If action is not taken against Gandhi, then what could be done against the likes of (Asaduddin) Owaisi,” said Singh. Bhupinder Yadav told EXPRESS that the BJP has demanded that the EC should “seize” the Congress symbol.