UP polls: Personal remarks, rhetoric put real issues on backburner
LUCKNOW: The word which echoed the loudest in battleground UP during the electoral battle was ‘Bulldozer’. While it dominated the discourse of the Samajwadi Party as a jibe against UP CM Yogi Adityanath to reflect his policy of hot pursuit of a particular community in the name of law and order, the BJP, on the other, donned it as an honour.
At times, the high octane campaign got so personal and high on the rhetoric that the real issues were pushed to the background.
Going a step further, the BJP poll campaign modulators decided to lineup ‘bulldozers’ at Yogi’s rallies as a mark of people’s affirmation towards his toughness against the criminals on one side and the signage of development, on the other. Moreover, by the time poll juggernaut reached the third phase, Yogi willingly earned the moniker — ‘Bulldozer Baba’ — personifying his credentials of one taking on the mafia head-on. Even the local media used the moniker frequently for the UP CM.
At a public rally in Karhal, Akhilesh Yadav’s constituency, Yogi asserted that he had sent his bulldozers for repair till polls were on. “They will be put to service again after March 10 to silence all those who are hot-headed,” Yogi had asserted to a cheering crowd.
Even a video of UP CM went viral on social media showing him in a helicopter over a rally ground in Bahraich and drawing pleasure over the stationed bulldozers on one side of the ground.
While the campaign entered the fourth phase, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav made the announcement from a stage that instead of calling Yogi Adityanath as ‘Baba Mukhyamantri,’ Yogi Adityanath would be known as ‘Baba Bulldozer’. “It’s not me who has given him this name. A very big media house has given him this name,” said Akhilesh.
Now moving to other rhetorics, ‘Garmi’, ‘Ganna (cane) Vs Jinnah’, ‘Pakistan’ were other jargons that dominated the poll lexicon phase-by-phase, region-by-region.
In western UP, the ‘Garmi Utar Denge’ catchline took the lead in the discourse of UP CM Yogi Adityanath as a reaction to a controversial video of SP candidate Nahid Hassan in which he was seen issuing threats to voters. The saffron brigade got a tool without much effort to beat the opposition eyeing
polarization of votes in a region where minority community dominates the population in some pockets.
As the scene shifted to the cane belt of Rohailkhand, the war of words centered around ‘Ganna Vs Jinnah.’ The BJP started highlighting Akhilesh Yadav’s October 31 statement on Mohammad Ali Jinnah whom he had regarded as the freedom fighter, the SP and Congress minced no words in targeting the BJP over the
killing of farmers allegedly by the union minister’s son in Lakhimpur Kheri.
Moreover, the poll arena of UP was also replete with ‘jugalbandi’ of catchy scores between the incumbent and opposition camps. ‘UP mein sab ba …..’ by BJP MP Ravi Kishan was responded in the same tone as tenor with …‘UP mein Ka Ba ....? by the opposition. Kanhaiya Mittal’s ‘Jo Ram Ko Laye hain, hum unko layenge (we will bring those who have brought Lord Ram)’ was answered by the opposition as -- ‘Jo Saand ko laye hain, hum unko bhagayenge’ (we will shoo away those who have brought stray cattle).