The monk from Gorakhnath Peeth has emerged as the new face of Hindutva, having managed to lead his party to a victory in Uttar Pradesh that many believe is bigger than the one in 2017. The road to Delhi begins from Lucknow, it is said and Yogi Adityanath has managed to make his presence in Lucknow felt in the highest echelons of Delhi. In the end, even in a sharply bipolar contest, almost immediately following the second wave of Covid, skyrocketing fuel prices, strong dissatisfaction against sitting legislators, anger amongst farmers, it was Adityanath who completely decimated the second best player in the fray, the Samajwadi Party.
The SP, which had seemed quite confident of ousting the BJP in Uttar Pradesh, riding high on its lucrative offerings to the public at large and especially targeting the BJP’s core vote base - the middle class, fell well short of a majority. In fact, it barely dented the BJP’s performance, though its vote share improved substantially. But this was bound to happen in a completely bipolar contest (similar to the one seen in West Bengal).
Despite taking up issues directly affecting the middle class and making promises ranging from reviving the pension scheme to 300 units of free electricity, the SP was unable to bridge the 10 per cent gap. The SP’s efforts, as the numbers suggest, were too little and too late. Apart from Muslims and Yadavs who voted unilaterally for it, the SP could swing no other caste completely in its favour. In pockets where another party was stronger (like the Congress in Kidwai Nagar), Muslims favoured the party best positioned to oust the BJP but maintained a considerable distance from the BJP and that is arguably explainable.
The results of Uttar Pradesh surely have a very strong bearing on national politics. Adityanath has done what most others failed to do. No chief minister has been re-elected after completing a five-year tenure, except him (most probably, he will be the chief minister). Adityanath managed to win over the BSP’s core vote bank, a feat that no one had accomplished before; not even the charismatic Narendra Modi in 2014, 2017 and 2019. Arguments can go on until the cows come home but the numbers have surely established Adityanath as one of the tallest pan-India Hindutva faces and probably as a potential Prime Ministerial candidate.
