As the Lok Sabha elections get closer, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 25 kicked off his campaign for the third straight stint in power. He has picked Bulandshahr in Western Uttar Pradesh as the starting point of his campaign. Wonder why?
In fact, Modi’s decision to hit the campaign trail from the nondescript UP town has caused many frowns as he represents the Varanasi Lok Sabha seat from the eastern part of the state. Political commentators are trying to understand the strategic reasoning behind the choice.
According to a statement by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), the PM will unveil multiple development projects worth over $2.29 billion (around Rs 19,100 crore) on January 25. "The projects are related to several important sectors like rail, road, oil and gas, urban development and housing," it said.
Modi’s western UP pivot
Western Uttar Pradesh, which consists of Braj and Rohilkhand regions, has 29 Lok Sabha seats, with a historically significant population of Jats, Gurjars as well as Muslims. It is often said that cane, caste and communal polarisation in western UP decides the fate of political parties.
The region is considered economically better off than other regions of the state, primarily due to its strong economic growth rate based on the success of the Green Revolution.
Before the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, after a series of failed attempts, Union Home Minister Amit Shah made one last bid to woo the Rashtriya Lok Dal OBC chief Jayant Chaudhary, a Jat leader from Western Uttar Pradesh, but it did not fructify. The BJP was also slammed badly when the farmers’ protest in Delhi against the now repealed farm laws received huge support from the Khaps of Western Uttar Pradesh.
Out of the 16 Lok Sabha seats that the BJP had lost in the 2019 polls in UP, seven were in Western UP, including Saharanpur that had voted for BSP, which had then contested the elections in alliance with the Samajwadi Party. In 2014, the BJP had won all the seats in Western Uttar Pradesh except Mainpuri, Firozabad, Badaun and Mainpuri.
In the Assembly polls in 2022, the BJP, despite its overall impressive wins, couldn’t stop the SP-RLD alliance from making an impression in the Jat belt, bagging 17 out of the 27 seats in the Moradabad division against the BJP’s 10 and nine out of the 16 seats in the Saharanpur region.
Need for a fresh outreach?
The BJP has made repeated attempts to tap the legacy of community leaders. More recently, it harped on the legacy of Charan Singh by unveiling the tallest statue of the stalwart from the Jat community. The unveiling of the statue came along with the Yogi Adityanath government announcing a public holiday on his birth anniversary on December 23.
Understanding the demography
The Braj region, which is part of Western Uttar Pradesh, is also significant for the Hindus as it is believed to be the location of Lord Krishna’s early life.
In the Rohilkhand region, the percentage of Muslim population reaches nearly half-way mark, which indicates their political significance for political parties like Samajwadi Party, BSP and the Congress.
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