Yogi’s Outreach To Disgruntled Deputy Shows All Is Still Not Well Within UP BJP

Lucknow: Over the past week, top leaders of the Sangh parivar have made multiple visits to Lucknow even as Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath made it a point to call on the top BJP leadership trio of Narendra Modi-Amit Shah-J.P. Nadda in Delhi. Predictably, these interactions have been officially described as a 'routine exercise' in the run up to the forthcoming state assembly elections in India’s most populous and politically crucial state. However, notwithstanding such claims, it is quite evident that all is still not well with the party in power in UP.

What began, perhaps, as a tussle between the ruling party’s central leadership and the UP chief minister over the induction of the prime minister’s nominee, A.K. Sharma, into the Yogi cabinet, appears to have snowballed into open factionalism within the Sangh parivar.

A former Gujarat cadre IAS officer who had remained a part of Modi’s inner coterie for 21 long years, Sharma went for premature retirement about two years before his superannuation. He was airdropped in Lucknow, where he was instantly nominated as a member of the legislative council (MLC) – a move that was seen as a precursor to his appointment as another deputy chief minister. With two existing deputy CMs, Dinesh Sharma and Keshav Prasad Maurya, word was that Modi's former personal secretary would either be made the third deputy CM or would replace one of the two.

The diktat from the high command evidently made Adityanath uncomfortable. Initially, he tried to defer the issue but as time went by and Delhi continued to mount pressure, the UP chief minister chose to turn defiant and flatly refused to bring Sharma on board. Obviously, he was against the idea of allowing another parallel power centre to grow, and that too under the direct patronage of the prime minister.

The fact that this standoff happened shortly after the party’s defeat in the West Bengal assembly election seemed to suggest Yogi now saw Modi as a weakened force. After all, the Modi-Shah duo had left no stone unturned to give the Trinamool Congress a run for its money. Yet, they failed miserably in uprooting the TMC from that state and Mamata Banerjee fought relentlessly to give a seemingly invincible Modi the taste of a humiliating defeat.

The way events subsequently unfolded – Sharma has ended up with the insignificant post of vice-president in the state BJP organisation (which already had 16 vice-presidents) – sent a loud and clear message that Adityanath had got away with his open defiance of the prime minister.

IAS officer A.K. Sharma joined the BJP on Thursday at the party office in Lucknow. Photo: Twitter/@aksharmaBharat

Advertisement

What followed was another round of visits by top RSS and BJP leaders, who once again held closed-door confabulations with party functionaries, ministers and legislators. The buzz that went around was that the bulk of those being consulted reiterated their grudge against the chief minister’s alleged “indifference and inaccessibility" and his "unresponsive” attitude towards them.

Since Keshav Prasad Maurya was believed to be the most prominent face among the unhappy lot, word was sent from the Sangh parivar to Yogi that he must mend his fences with this deputy CM. Pat came the decision of senior RSS leaders, who had arrived from Delhi, to pay a visit to Maurya. The pretext was to bless Maurya’s newly-wed son and daughter-in-law. Yogi, who had not cared to attend the marriage, promptly joined the RSS leaders on this trip to Maurya’s home, barely 75 metres from the chief minister’s official residence.

Significantly, that was Yogi’s first ever visit to Maurya’s home in the four and a half years of his stint as chief minister. No wonder it made headlines, even though it was carried out under the garb of a social call.

Insiders claim that the visit was not just aimed at placating Maurya but also to send the message far and wide that there were 'no differences' between the CM and his deputy, who has been eyeing the top job in the state from day one.

Maurya, who had been specially hand-picked for the coveted position of UP BJP president just a few months before the 2017 assembly election, did serve the party’s objective in winning over the state's non-Yadav OBCs. And sure enough, that gave the BJP the surge that took the party to an unprecedented 325 seat win in a house of 403 members.

It was on this basis that Maurya sought the chief minister’s chair. He had to remain contented with the deputy CM’s position after Yogi Adityanath was suddenly chosen for the top job. But he continued to nurture his dream and was understood to have reiterated his demand a few weeks back, when speculation was rife that the party high command was seriously considering replacing Yogi.

With the Yogi replacement plan having been shelved for the time being, and the Sangh parivar’s eye on the non-Yadav OBC vote bank, efforts were renewed to keep Maurya in good humour. Sure enough, Tuesday’s visit to Maurya’s residence was clearly by design and with purpose. If it was aimed at enhancing Maurya’s profile, it was also meant to make Yogi climb down and to come to terms with his deputy.

File photo of Narendra Modi and Yogi Adityanath. Photo: PTI

This had become necessary because of a deeply entrenched notion that governance under a staunch Thakur chief minister was tilted heavily towards that upper caste community – which needed course correction. Besides, the Sangh parivar did not want the party to go in to the 2022 polls with the widespread impression that a cold war was on within the BJP's rank and file.

However, uncertainty continues to reign supreme even now, as the debate about Yogi’s fate still continues. Defence minister Rajnath Singh may have gone out of his way to affirm recently that the assembly election would be fought under Yogi’s leadership. On the other hand, in his first ever letter to state party president Swatantra Dev Singh, the prime minister’s nominee – and now state party vice president – A.K. Sharma stated his position loudly and clearly:  "In my humble opinion," he wrote, "even today, the people of Uttar Pradesh love Modiji the same they had done in 2013-14. To win the upcoming (UP assembly) elections, the name and patronage of the mass leader is enough.”

It was only towards the end of the letter that he added, "I am of the firm belief that under your leadership and the leadership of chief minister Yogi Adityanath, the BJP will bag more seats in the 2022 assembly elections than the past."

Sharma's well-chosen words speak volumes on the goings-on within the party, even as a façade of ‘all is well’ is being gamefully put up.

The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.