‘Batenge to Katenge’: How a campaign slogan got Yogi Adityanath his mojo back

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath at the BJP office in Lucknow on Saturday. (PTI)

A campaign rejected as divisive and termed as “hate-mongering” by Opposition parties is believed to have played a key role in uniting Hindu voters – who had drifted away from the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections – and eventually resulting in the party registering its best-ever performance in Maharashtra.

According to the Election Commission of India, the BJP won 132 of the 148 seats it contested while the Mahayuti’s overall tally stood at a staggering 230 in the 288-member Maharashtra legislative Assembly, the highest for any pre-poll alliance in the state in the last five decades.

While such victories usually have multiple factors at play behind it, the BJP’s strategic campaign (backed and executed on the ground by the Sangh Parivar) to win back Hindu voters who had drifted away from it during the Lok Sabha elections played a decisive role in its thumping return to power in the state.

There were two slogans part of this campaign that helped percolate the message among the masses. The first – ‘Ek hain to safe hain’ (We are safe if we are united) – raised by none other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi helped consolidate Hindus, OBCs in particular, against the Maratha vote and acted as a counter to the Congress’ campaign on reservation and caste census.

The second, and perhaps the more drastic campaign was led by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and firebrand BJP leader Yogi Adityanath. His slogan of “Batenge to Katenge” in Uttar Pradesh’s Ayodhya began reverberating in Maharashtra months ahead of polls and hammered home the message that Hindu unity was a prerequisite for their survival.

Both messages appeared to work against Muslim polarisation that cost the BJP at least seven seats in the Lok Sabha elections and, in the process, also helped galvanise Hindu supporters and demolish the Opposition’s caste-based narratives.

With its raw appeal, CM Adityanath’s slogan also found the backing of the BJP’s ideological fountainhead the RSS. The ‘batenge to katenge’ slogan was used by senior Sangh functionary Dattatreya Hosabale at one of his rallies and found the backing of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat who also called for Hindu unity in his Dussehra address.

The validation that his slogan has received could not have come at a better time for Yogi Adityanath. The Lok Sabha elections and the massive reversals that the BJP saw in the state had left him in a precarious position internally as well as in the people’s eyes. The BJP’s reduced tally in UP was one of the biggest reasons why the party failed to achieve a majority on its own in the Lok Sabha.

However, its unprecedented victory in Maharashtra, coupled with 7 out of 10 wins in the bypolls in Uttar Pradesh, have re-established Yogi Adityanath’s enduring popularity. The victory in UP was crucial not just for Yogi Adityanath’s own standing within the party, it plays an equally crucial role in boosting the morale of BJP workers ahead of the 2027 Assembly elections in the state.

Through his ‘batenge to katenge’ slogan, Yogi managed to cut through the Samajwadi Party’s ‘Pichda, Dalit, Alpasankhyak’ campaign, stirring up the Hindutva card and amalgamating different sub-castes under the larger umbrella of the Hindu community.

The UP Chief Minister, however, credits Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the party’s performances in Maharashtra as well as UP. Speaking to the media on Saturday after the election results were declared, Yogi said, “The victory of the BJP-NDA in the Uttar Pradesh byelections is a testament to the unwavering faith of the people in the successful leadership and vision of our respected Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji. This victory is the outcome of the double-engine government’s commitment to security, good governance, and public welfare, as well as the tireless efforts of dedicated party workers.”