Uttar Pradesh is, without a doubt, India’s politically and electorally most important state. There is even a common proverb in the corridors of power since Independence that the road to Delhi runs through UP. But, cutting to the present, can you imagine that the outcome of a clutch of upcoming assembly by-elections in UP — not even Lok Sabha but Vidhan Sabha by-polls — is now going to decide who will succeed Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the throne of India!
Earlier this year, while electioneering ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal had dramatically predicted that Yogi Aditynath would be removed from the chief ministership of UP by Bharatiya Janata Party leaders within two months of Modi’s re-election as PM. He also shared his rationale for Adityanath’s removal.
According to Kejriwal, Modi would step down in September 2025 on turning 75, paving the way for Amit Shah to become the PM. And for that succession plan to succeed, the BJP would have to get rid of Adityanath well in advance so that he doesn’t become an obstacle in Shah’s prime ministerial path. One doesn’t know how Adityanath really took Kejriwal’s ominous forecast, but publicly he poured scorn on Kejriwal, claiming that the Delhi CM had become delusional due to his stint in prison.
While we still don’t know the basis of Kejriwal’s prophesy, is there any doubt that the BJP leadership has put Adityanath in the dock for the saffron party’s poor performance in UP? He is being openly held responsible for the BJP’s slide from 62 to 33 seats, compelling the Modi-Shah duo to depend on N Chandrababu Naidu and Nitish Kumar to cobble a majority in Parliament and form the government.
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But Adityanath is pushing back against the central leadership’s all-out campaign to pin the blame on him, resulting in a virtual civil war in the BJP. With the full backing of the top central leadership, the deputy CM of UP, Keshav Prasad Maurya, has declared war against Adityanath. He is even marshalling the BJP organisation against the Adityanath regime, declaring that “the party is bigger than the government” and that “nobody is above the party”, to push the CM into a corner and extinguish his political career.
It’s no secret that Maurya is Modi’s and Shah’s man. The Adityanath camp, in fact, says that he is a hitman! Recently, Maurya parked himself in Delhi for days on end to exert psychological pressure on Adityanath and spread disarray in his camp. All this is making it as clear as daylight that the civil war in the UP BJP has little to do with fixing responsibility for the party’s lacklustre performance in the Lok Sabha polls, and everything to do with ensuring that Shah succeeds Modi smoothly without Adityanath opposing or challenging him.
Everyone knows that in the last 10 years the BJP high command has successfully sidelined anyone who had the potential to challenge Modi’s authority. Even as the BJP talked loudly of building a Congress-mukt India, it quietly went about the task of ensuring a rival-mukt BJP to prolong Modi’s rule, which indirectly helped Shah to consolidate his own position with his fellow Gujarati boss’s full backing. I don’t think that Modi trusts anyone more than Shah. Another man Modi literally trusts with his life is Ajit Doval, but that’s another story altogether to be told another day.
Coming back to the topic, a big challenge to Modi-Shah however suddenly emerged in 2017 when after the UP assembly elections, instead of Maurya, the all-powerful Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh unexpectedly backed Adityanath for the CM’s post and had its way. Not that Adityanath is an RSS man. In fact, he is neither an RSS nor a BJP man but an outsider who pursued Hindutva goals better than any insider.
Once in power, Adityanath intentionally walked in Modi’s footsteps to project himself as his natural and legitimate successor. But this didn’t go down well with Modi-Shah and their coterie because the rise of Bulldozer Baba upset the succession plans. To curb Adityanath’s charisma, the central leadership imposed not one but two deputy CMs — Maurya and Brajesh Pathak. Moreover, all key positions in the UP police and civil administration were filled by bureaucrats handpicked by Delhi to clip the CM’s wings. And thanks to the BJP high command, the most lucrative contracts for developing Varanasi and Ayodhya were not bagged by financiers loyal to Adityanath but went to businessmen from western India, especially Gujarat. Adityanath coolly took all the snubs in his stride thinking that he would have the last laugh.
But now with the very high probability of Modi vacating the PM’s chair for Shah after 13 more months, the knives are out for Adityanath. He will be sent packing or retained as CM depending on the outcome of the by-elections, the dates for which are to be announced soon. Among the 10 seats, five are held by the Samajwadi Party, three by the BJP and one each by BJP allies NISHAD Party and Rashtriya Lok Dal.
Adityanath is presently in a do-or-die mode and is taking the elections as a personal challenge. But with the SP’s prospects looking extremely bright in as many as seven seats, Adityanath’s report card is going to read 3 out of 10. Will he be promptly guillotined, or will he be retained to avert a big upheaval ahead of elections in Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand? But one thing is clear: never before have by-elections assumed such importance, tied as they are to who is going to succeed Modi.
The author is an independent, Pegasused reporter and commentator on foreign policy and domestic politics
