NEW DELHI: Moving ahead with its strategy to chase 50 per cent vote share in the Uttar Pradesh polls, the BJP is working on social engineering to blunt the electoral impact of the minority consolidation in favour of any Opposition unity.
With the BJP facing the elections in UP along with Uttarakhand early next year, the saffron outfit is learnt to be banking on its past successes of exploiting the caste dynamics in its favour even when there is an alliance of various political parties identified with specific communities in India’s politically most important state. The BJP is in power in both states.
“We work with an aim to get past the 50 per cent vote share, and it will remain the strategy in UP. That is despite the fact that a perfect Opposition unity is only a theoretical proposition. On numerous occasions, it has been demonstrated that the meeting of the hearts of the top leaders doesn’t find resonance on the ground,” explained a senior BJP functionary.
The Opposition unity, meanwhile, continues to be a work in progress. In the past, the BJP has succeeded against the combined might of the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samajwadi Party and the Rashtriya Lok Dal — the sweeping win in the state in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections being an example.
While the BSP was able to increase the party’s strength in the Lok Sabha from zero in 2014 to 10, the tally of the SP had remained stuck at five only. The RLD was unable to open its account, with both the father-son duo of Ajit Singh and Jayant Choudhary facing defeats.
The BJP leaders stated that the Congress was tactically kept outside the grand alliance in 2019 in the northern state to wean away the upper caste support base of the saffron outfit, which also
hadn’t worked.
“The social constituents of the BSP, the SP and the RLD are known to be in conflicts, for economic and other reasons. The smaller OBCs and EBCs have shown in the past to have reservations against the dominance of one caste, which provides cushion to the BJP to work on its social engineering more effectively,” said another BJP functionary.
While the BJP works out strategy for 50 per cent vote share, the party leaders noted that the situations on the ground may be different in the elections, including the party’s task first to beat the anti-incumbency factor against the Yogi Adityanath government.