http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi-edit-page/his-iron-antagonist-in-the-battle-for-lucknow-are-the-stakes-higher-for-akhilesh-yadav-or-narendra-modi/
His iron antagonist: In the battle for Lucknow, are the stakes higher for Akhilesh Yadav or Narendra Modi? March 3, 2017, 2:13 AM IST Neerja Chowdhury in TOI Edit Page Whoever forms the next government in Lucknow, it is clear that Narendra Modi made Akhilesh Yadav his chief opponent in 2017 and the young Yadav targeted Narendra Modi as his principal adversary. The stakes are high for both leaders, with many seeing UP as a critical election for the prime minister too. Undoubtedly, 2017 is a stepping stone for 2019. But given the recent surge in BJP’s fortunes in local elections, from rural Odisha to urban Maharashtra, Modi is likely to survive even if BJP gets less than a majority in UP. More so as his personal popularity remains undimmed, and the magic of his oratory continues to work, keeping hopes alive in sections – mainly upper castes and non-Yadav OBCs in UP – that he will ‘do something good in the future’. At the end of the day, there is no challenge to him in BJP today. Though only 43 years old, and with time on his side, paradoxically, the stakes for Akhilesh are higher. For this election had catapulted him as a new star on UP’s horizon, a leader in his own right, who, if he won the UP polls, could have, in time, emerged as a national figure of immense potential, when there is such a paucity of leadership in the opposition ranks today to take on the juggernaut called Narendra Modi. Akhilesh’s appeal lay in his youth and in his transformation into a development icon, his delivery of concrete projects in record time, his attempts to reinvent his party and alter its caste-criminal image. Like Modi, he understood the changing national mood, with youth increasingly determining poll outcomes, opting for leaders who represent a radical departure from the established ways of doing politics. In fact, after SP’s 2014 defeat, Akhilesh modelled his style of politics on that of Modi. He concentrated on ‘vikas’ (though he reached out to Hindus as much to the Muslims), employed social media, technology and the latest marketing techniques to repackage himself and his party, as Modi had done. When he set out on his ‘yatra’ last November, cut short by the family war, he had young people eating out of his hands as they talked about ‘Akhilesh in Lucknow and Modi in Delhi’. Modi was, after all, not going to be chief minister, nor for that matter did BJP have a chief ministerial face. Additionally, Akhilesh was a local boy who enjoyed immense goodwill despite five years in power, and even BJP supporters conceded ‘bhaiyya ne kaam to kiya hai’. The ‘gathbandhan’ he forged with Congress started off well, in the first two phases of the poll which had been the weakest for SP. But from the third phase onwards, momentum seemed to peter out, and BJP started to pick up. As did Mayawati, and the Dalits who had left her side in 2014 seem to have rallied behind her this time. Real or otherwise, half an electoral battle is won or lost by popular perceptions that gain currency, particularly when there is no wave in favour of anyone, as is the case this time, with UP 2017 being seen as an aggregate of 403 elections, with caste, community, candidate all at work. BJP also had the advantage of a well-oiled electoral machine at its command, presided by a 24×7 politician like Amit Shah who conducted a no holds barred campaign, which first focussed on UP’s need for change, then on issues such as ‘shamshan-kabristan’ to polarise the discourse on Hindu-Muslim lines, and finally Modi brought it around to ‘GDP, IMR, MMR’ issues – and a ‘Harvard versus hard work’ pitch (to legitimise demonetisation) – to punch a hole in Akhilesh’s main agenda of UP’s development under him. However, he sidestepped the UP CM’s repeated challenge for a debate on what Modi had done for UP. While BJP had more than a dozen Union ministers camping in Varanasi at a given time, with dozens of helicopters crisscrossing the state, the gathbandhan did not have the battery of senior leaders that it should have pressed into service. The SP brass – Mulayam and Shivpal Yadav – was not available this time to Akhilesh, and March 11 will reveal how much damage they inflicted on SP in its fiefdom of the Yadav dominated Etawah-Mainpuri belt, by supporting rebels. Given the high stakes for the alliance, for the opposition as a whole, and indeed for Rahul Gandhi personally, Congress should have mounted a high voltage campaign in UP. More so since the party was given a whopping 105 seats it did not deserve, and that was the first sign of weakness Akhilesh displayed, having won a mega battle within the party. But this high voltage campaign did not happen, barring a few joint rallies by Akhilesh and Rahul. There were no signs of Priyanka Vadra either, who had helped craft the alliance. Early on, there were reports that she would canvass all over the state for the alliance. Many in UP were of the view that the atmosphere would get charged if Akhilesh, Dimple Yadav, Rahul and Priyanka were to jointly address half a dozen rallies in UP. Instead, for some curious reason, Priyanka addressed only one rally in Rae Bareli. The Muslims appear to have voted tactically. Now the election moves into its penultimate round. It is a ‘do or die battle’ for Akhilesh in Purvanchal. Many have predicted a hung assembly with a three way divide between the three major players. With BJP surging ahead, Modi has been making an all-out pitch to cross the majority figure. -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. 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