With Yogi Adityanath in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP is between a rock and a hard place

Travelling in Uttar Pradesh in during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, it was clear that the speculation about BJP’s top leadership removing Yogi Adityanath from the CM’s post had reached every hamlet. The Rajput community, to which the chief minister belongs, was particularly aggrieved about the possibility.

It wasn’t just Rajputs: almost everyone who was a supporter of the Hindutva ideology, across caste lines, thought Delhi wanted to undermine Adityanath precisely because of his popularity and rising national stature.

Keshav Prasad Maurya, deputy chief minister, is obviously not acting of his own accord when he is issuing statement after statement saying the government (Yogi) has sidelined the party (BJP). His frequent flights to Delhi leave nothing the imagination.

The idea is to strike when the iron is hot. What better opportunity to put Yogi in his place, maybe even remove him, than the poor Lok Sabha results?

Yogi Adityanath is too popular to be removed outright. Rajputs and the Hindutva core voter, not just in UP but across the Hindi heartland, could be upset. He is also the only one to not go away quietly if he is asked to reign. He is also, word on the streets in Lucknow has it, unlikely to accept even a senior cabinet rank in Delhi and be content with going out of sight, out of mind.

What can’t be done with a quick surgery needs an elaborate treatment over weeks and possibly months.

Keshav Prasad Maurya, who could not win his own Vidhan Sabha seat in 2022, is being made to wage a rare rebellion in the post-Modi era. It gives us a sense of déjà vu about the days when the BJP’s internal rift was always fought in public through headlines and podiums.

Oil has just been poured on the pan. It will take time to heat up. Repeated attacks by Maurya are being aided by a few BJP MLAs and by NDA allies in Uttar Pradesh. Letters are being shot off, veiled barbs are flying in the air.

The idea is to create a broad sentiment that “the party” in Uttar Pradesh is unhappy with Yogi Adityanath and is rebelling. The party-versus-CM binary is being reinforced with daily statements. This sentiment, it is being hoped, will undercut the idea that Yogi Adityanath is too popular to be removed.

Who are the MLAs with?

In the end, it will come down to who the MLAs are with. Are they with “the party” or with Yogi?

This is not an easy question to answer.

Most MLAs would be happy to see Yogi go, because they complain about how this is a government run by bureaucrats and MLAs can’t get anything done for their constituents. One may recall how around 100 BJP MLAs protested against their own government in the UP assembly in December 2019.

And yet, only a handful of MLAs have so far given statements that could be construed to be anti-Yogi. If the MLAs speak up against Yogi, and he is not removed, they will find themselves on the wrong side of power.

And even if he is removed, the MLAs also have to face their voters, among many of whom Yogi Adityanath is far more popular than those MLAs.

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The line of attack

The main line of attack against Yogi Adityanath is that the government ignores the party, MLAs and party workers alike. It has to be said that he is not the only chief minister who does so.

Almost every chief minister in the country runs a tight ship, maybe Yogi Adityanath has been excessive even by the usual standards. If an MLA wants to get a road built or a street light installed, she should be able to get a hearing.

But what many MLAs and party workers often want is to get criminals freed from jails, tenders and contracts given to their favourite businessmen, and their favourite bureaucrats transferred to ‘lucrative’ posts. If Yogi Adityanath has been able to improve law and order in Uttar Pradesh, it has been done by putting an end to such behaviour by political elites.

The other line of attack is that backward castes are not getting their due in a government perceived to be favouring the chief minister’s caste. Given the Lok Sabha results, it is true that the BJP in Uttar Pradesh today will benefit from having an OBC chief minister.

In the aftermath of the Lok Sabha results, the BJP set up a committee to investigate the causes of underperformance in Uttar Pradesh. The committee found 12 reasons which have been widely reported.

Only a few can be put on the chief minister’s door. He wasn’t responsible for the poor ticket distribution choices, or for the Constitution-change statements that scared Dalit voters, or for the anger of the Rajputs that started from other states.