The BJP’s perceived vulnerability in Uttar Pradesh has prompted an all-hands-on-board approach ahead of the 2027 assembly polls, with hatchets being buried and personae non gratae rehabilitated. The revamped party organisation has the maximum representation from UP; ace organiser and election manager Vinod Tawde has taken the reins of the campaign, and the re-‘RSS-isation’ of the BJP appears to be in process.
RSS Role In BJP’s UP Success
The perception that the RSS engine had powered the BJP to four consecutive electoral wins in UP is reflected in the phrase ‘RSS-isation of the BJP’, coined by political anthropologist Shashank Chaturvedi. He attributed the BJP’s spectacular success in UP to close coordination between the party and the mothership from 2014 onwards. Sunil Bansal, an RSS pracharak deputed as organising secretary of the BJP’s UP wing, was hailed as the architect of the BJP’s electoral strategy. The ‘sangathan shilpi’ pracharak joined the impressive list of RSS-trained political organisers who built (and rapidly expanded) the party’s base across north, west, and east India from the late 1980s.
Post the 2022 assembly elections, a rash of media reports pointed to a rift between UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath and Bansal, who was said to be ‘close’ to Union home minister Amit Shah. Bansal was duly shifted to Delhi and went on to pull off a spectacular coup in West Bengal. But the dissonance between the party’s central leadership and the charismatic UP CM persisted. The double whammy of internal dissension and a marked froideur in relations with the RSS is believed to have tanked the BJP in UP, resulting in the loss of 29 seats in the 2024 general elections.
Tawde Takes Charge Of Campaign
For the BJP, regaining its momentum in UP is vital to its prospects in 2029. Going by opinion surveys, the contest will be tough, close and hard-fought. Clearly, there is no room for discord. While the party was rife with speculation that Bansal would be reassigned to his old karmabhoomi (theatre of operations), the baton passed to Tawde instead. The party leadership tactically decided against a forced reset of the Adityanath-Bansal equation.
As Adityanath and Tawde have no historical baggage, they should be able to work well together. Besides, both are said to be close to RSS No. 2 (sarkaryavaha), Dattatreya Hosabale. That the RSS and Adityanath have signed off on Tawde’s command of the backroom is significant because, as Chaturvedi notes in his analysis of the 2022 assembly elections, the belief “that the BJP has now so far outgrown the RSS that it no longer needs it” is far off the mark.
BJP-RSS Coordination Crucial
Historically, the party has always underperformed when it is at odds with the RSS. The kerfuffle during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, when former party president J P Nadda famously declared that the BJP, having transitioned from ‘aksham’ to ‘saksham’, no longer required the services of the RSS, now seems to have been forgotten. RSS No. 1 (sarsanghchalak) Mohanrao Bhagwat has visited Lucknow twice this year and met Adityanath on both occasions. The proximity between the CM and the Sangh is critical to mobilising cadres and outreach to disenchanted communities.
As of now, it appears that securing UP even with RSS support will be difficult. In 2024, the BJP lost in 224 of the 403 assembly segments, with Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav’s PDA (backward classes, Dalits and minorities) strategy paying off handsomely. Tawde’s task appears Sisyphean, as surveys point to a slippage of the BJP’s non-Yadav OBC and non-Jatav Dalit support base. Add to that the weakening of the Hindutva plank, owing to the Ram Temple donation scam and the great millennial-Gen Z job crisis. Further undercutting the party’s hold on the state is the Brahmin lobby, which is unhappy with the perceived OBC and Thakur focus. Meanwhile, elected representatives have complained of a non-cooperative bureaucracy impeding the delivery of welfare goods.
Caste Dynamics Shape Strategy
The BJP is clearly counting on Tawde’s organisational skills. No stranger to the intricacies of caste politics, he is said to have spent months studying the influence of caste on leadership patterns and voting behaviour in different regions of Bihar. Subsequently, he crafted and micromanaged a strategy that catapulted the BJP to its best-ever performance in the state. UP’s caste dynamics are similar, which gives Tawde a bit of a headstart. He had visited Lucknow prior to Adityanath’s cabinet expansion earlier this year and held a closed-door meeting with the CM. He also met the deputy CM and the top serving and former party functionaries to get a sense of political terrain.
BJP Expands UP Representation
The BJP general secretary’s efforts will be supported by the eight faces from UP in the national office-bearers list, which includes a Brahmin leader, Harish Dwivedi. While the BJP currently does not have an overarching Brahmin face, Jitin Prasada, deputy CM Brajesh Pathak, and Sudhanshu Trivedi are credible leaders. The party’s OBC Morcha and Minority Front have new leaders, Amarpal Maurya and Kunwar Basit Ali, both of whom are from UP. Professor Tariq Mansoor, former vice chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University, is the other Muslim face of the party. Courting the women’s vote will be Smriti Irani and Vasundhara Raje (albeit not from UP), former MP Rekha Verma and Rajya Sabha MP Sangeeta Yadav. Lok Sabha MP Bhola Singh is expected to add heft to the campaign in western UP.
If a lesson can be drawn from UP in 2024 and Bihar in 2025, it is that dissension always takes a toll. The relatively smooth functioning of the SP-Congress alliance in UP contrasted with the intra-party tensions within the BJP. In Bihar, the harmonious JD(U)-BJP front easily overcame the fractious RJD-Congress alliance marked by open conflict between the two parties and their respective cadres. Cooperation, coordination, and collaboration will be the watchwords in 2027.
Bhavdeep Kang is a senior journalist with 35 years of experience in working with major newspapers and magazines. She is now an independent writer and author.
