By now, it is a no-brainer that Narendra Modi's Mission 272 hinges on the BJP's performance in Uttar Pradesh. A rich harvest from the 80 Lok Sabha seats on offer in UP will be critical for the party's math, and the target for UP, where Modi's trusted aide Amit Shah is handling party affairs and the campaign strategy, is 50 seats.
In the 2012 Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh that saw Akhilesh Yadav ride convincingly to the chief ministerial chair, the BJP actually saw a small dip in its numbers, going from 51 to 47 MLAs. But prepoll surveys in 2013 and January 2014 have shown a clear upswing in the party's fortunes.
Narendra Modi. Reuters image
What has led to this saffron surge in Uttar Pradesh? Clearly, much of it is on account of the BJP's prime ministerial candidate. The ruling Samajwadi Party's inept handling of the Muzaffarnagar riots and the bad publicity for Mulayam Singh Yadav and his son around the Saifai Mahotsav may have injected more fuel, but Modi appears to have set the UP fire.
According to a report in The Economic Times, three things apart from Modi go in favour of the BJP's ascension in UP -- Amit Shah's "organisational acumen", the OBC and youth support the party has drummed up for Modi and, this is critical, a split in the votebank of the Samajwadi Party that may have alienated its Muslim votebank with its goof-ups in Muzaffarnagar.
But there's no room for overconfidence for the BJP. Mayawati has emerged stronger, and the BJP may have a rather tough time fighting the old guard of the party to make way for Modi's hand-picked candidates.
Shah's role cannot be stressed enough, apparently. Having toured 44 constituencies already, the former minister of state for home in Gujarat has been wrestling disputing factions and senior leaders' egos. State leaders are sending Shah reports every month about the performance of district-level officers, who have been asked to camp in their districts for at least 20 days every month.
"The target is to cover all 1.27 lakh polling booths in the state," the report says of Shah.
Kalyan Singh, former chief minister whose rebellion in 1999 cost the BJP dearly, is back helming affairs with Shah, indicating the possible return of the OBC vote to the BJP.
Modi himself, it has been reported earlier, could contest from Varanasi or eastern UP. Choosing to contest in a highly polarised state just when he has spent the past months apparently softening his image of a Hindutva hardliner is a gamble. The Economic Times report says this could go either way. There could be an additional five to seven seats for the BJP in UP, or a harkback to the time when the party lost seats even when Atal Behari Vajpayee contested from Lucknow at the height of his popularity.
In what is either carefully engineered situation or pure chance, Modi has studiously avoided any hardline references throughout his campaign over the past few months, but other saffron parties have ensured that communal politics remains at the centrestage of the Uttar Pradesh polity -- junior BJP leaders have continued to talk of the Ram temple, the state BJP felicitated two MLAs accused of inciting communal tensions in Muzaffarnagar, the VHP has rallied at frequent intervals for support for the Ram temple in Ayodhya including its 84-kosi yatra.
Amit Shah has also relied on RSS men for key posts in election campaign monitoring and coordination. Shah also visited Ayodhya in July last year, offering propitiations to Lord Ram.
According to the CSDS-Lokniti ELection Tracker survey, the jump in seats the BJP can hope to win in UP has been quick, even from July. In a July 2013 survey, the BJP got 27 percent of the vote share while the SP and BSP got 22 and 21 percent respectively. The Congress was at 16 percent even then. The estimated voteshare now for the BJP is 38 percent.
The Modi wave is clear too -- the BJP's prime ministerial candidate has widened the gap betwene himself and Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi at 35 percent believing Modi will make a better PM and 12 percent for Rahul.
For now, 40 seats in UP looks possible, probable even, according to the Economic Times report quoting leaders. For 50 seats, Modi has some challenges: "... a ruthless cull of old guard, far better use of Narendra Modi and an effective counter to Mayawati. And Modi contesting from UP is not necessarily the best strategy for either the party or its PM candidate."
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