By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2022-02-11 10:29:30
A major political row has broken out over UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath's speech in a video where he says that if people do not vote for the BJP in the UP elections, the state will become another Kashmir, Bengal or Kerala. "If you donât vote for BJP, it would not take much time for UP to become like Kashmir, Bengal and Kerala" he said. What Yogi wanted to say was clear - the BJP thinks that Muslims are being given the long rope in these states and it always accuses the Trinamool Congress (TMC) in Bengal and the CPI(M) in Kerala of indulging in Muslim appeasement. It can also be deduced from his statement that he thinks the BJP is the only party that would protect the rights of the Hindus and not allow the Muslims to punch above their weight, another pet theme of the Yogi government which repeatedly says that before it came to power in UP, Muslims used to corner the benefits of all government schemes.
Both the TMC and the CPI(M) were quick to respond. While the TMC reminded Yogi about his mismanagement in the second wave of Covid when dead bodies were found floating in the Ganga and advised him to take a leaf out of the TMC schemes like Swasthya Sathi and Kanyashree which have won international and national accolades, CPI(M) leader and Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan sought to highlight how Kerala was ahead of UP in all social indices. He caustically tweeted that "if UP turns into Kerala as @myogiadityanath fears, it will enjoy the best education, health services, social welfare, living standards and have a harmonious society in which people won't be murdered in the name of religion and caste. That's what the people of UP would want." BJP leaders in Bengal tried to make light of the issue by saying Yogi was referring to the law-and-order situation in Bengal as 'hundreds' of BJP workers were killed after the state elections in May last year.
Yogi Adityanath has achieved the opposite of what he attempted to do. Instead of projecting the BJP as the sole protector of Hindu interests, he has turned the focus on the alleged misgovernance of his government in UP. Since assembly elections are fought on local issues, these charges against the UP government will hurt the BJP.