Isn’t the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) picking up a point or two on Yogi Adityanath, considering how its organisational muscle and might has gradually been done away with? The party is muting the response and reaction of the party’s disillusioned top brass trying to calm the leadership hurdle in the state. It’s bureaucracy who is calling the shots, with the Chief Minister tacitly giving the go ahead.
A ceremonial cabinet is too weak to dominate the bureaucracy, which for its part is professionally tasked with exhibiting its grasp and grip in all walks of administrative roles and goals. It was for this purpose that the central leadership of the BJP set up a fact-finding committee that works on the road map to revive and resurrect the prospects of the party in the next year’s Assembly elections.
I don’t understand how these committees will be helpful at all if Yogi has already cut the party in size. I also believe it was under compulsion that Radha Mohan Singh and BL Santhosh publicly announced the party’s willingness to contest the UP Assembly elections under Yogi’s chief ministership by retaining the upper caste Rajput votes.
Electorally, they can bank on Keshav Maurya commanding grip over the OBC vote bank as for a Kalraj Mishra who can deliver it for a Brahmin community. By plainly banking on its regional pockets of influence, the BJP may sail through, given its appetite for electoral titles. The last seven years vividly illustrated from a panchayat to an assembly party is always up for grabs.
On-paper politics is all about arithmetic, alliances and coalitions, but in practice, it is all about focusing on your skills and strengths with an aim and acknowledgement of one’s political purpose and pursuit. Interestingly, Yogi may like to recast and reconfigure his politics a bit to win over the fence-sitters who in all likelihood may desert him for the better. The coming few months will make everything crystal clear and bring to rest all the suspicion and speculation.