LUCKNOW, India – Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling national party will remain in power in India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, according to early election results released Thursday, continuing its record of repeated success in the polls, despite rising economic conditions. adversity.
The victory by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, marks the first time in more than three decades that voters have returned a sitting bloc to power in Uttar Pradesh, home to about 240 million people. It further consolidates the rise of Yogi Adityanath, a hard-line Hindu monk who served as the state’s chief minister for five years and is increasingly touted as a potential successor to Mr Modi.
Crowds of BJP supporters arrived in front of the party’s office in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, before the results came in. The mood was jubilant, with young men starting out in cheers and chants as television presenters counted chairs on a big screen.
“I’m so glad the BJP is winning,” said Arpit Mishra, a 19-year-old party official wearing a crisp floral jacket and a scarf of saffron, the party’s color, wrapped around his knuckles.
“They will give Hindutva a boost,” he said, referring to the party’s vision to reshape India along explicitly Hindu lines. “Our life as Hindus will change.”
Results were also released on Thursday from four other Indian states that voted in the past month, suggesting that opposition politics in India would undergo a major transformation. Most notably, the Indian National Congress Party, which has been in power for most of India’s history since it gained independence from Britain in 1947, appeared to be continuing its rapid decline.
Early results showed that Congress lost in Punjab, one of the few states it was still in power, and that it was chasing the BJP in close races in the smaller states of Goa and Uttarakhand. The Aam Aadmi party, which controls Delhi, had a significant lead in Punjab, raising the prospect of becoming the first of India’s smaller regional parties to take control of a second state.
Many of the regional parties are trying to look beyond Congress to Modi, hoping to compete in the 2024 general election. A victory in Punjab would give Aam Aadmi – whose name means ‘common man’ – a head start. give on other opposition blocs, analysts said.
While Mr Modi’s party has at times fought against strong regional parties in state and general elections, it would not be an easy or quick process to consolidate any of them into a real opposition to Mr Modi’s hold on India. to challenge. And Congress, the largest opposition party with a national presence, has proved increasingly vulnerable.
With exit polls indicating that races in both Goa and Uttarakhand would be tight, congressional leaders flew into both states in recent days to try and prevent a last-minute “poaching” by the BJP – i.e. attempts to convince winning candidates of to switch sides. In 2017, the BJP used such tactics to form the government in Goa, although Congress had won several seats.
This time, prominent congressmen gathered at a hotel in Goa for what party leaders said was a birthday party for one of them, and the candidates were offered rooms overnight. According to Indian media, it was an attempt by the party to stick together and block BJP’s last-minute maneuvers
“No one can poach us even if they try their best,” said Girish Chodankar, the congress chairman in Goa. “We have taken all kinds of precautions.”
Much of the attention during the election season has been focused on the price state of Uttar Pradesh, not only because of its size, but also because of the impact it could have on the future of Indian politics.
Adityanath took a beating from the opposition Samajwadi party, receiving heavy criticism for its handling of Covid-19 in Uttar Pradesh and a worsening economic plunge. During the deadly second wave of the pandemic, the state’s health system collapsed, with reports of oxygen deprivation. Images of dead bodies on the banks of the Ganges River, which is sacred to Hindus, were frequent.
Still, analysts predicted that Mr Adityanath would remain comfortable as prime minister even if he won by a slightly smaller lead than in 2017 – reaffirming the BJP’s ability to mobilize and consolidate strong support despite short-term hardships.
Adityanath, who always wears his saffron monk robe in public, has the vision of Mr. Modi promoted India as a “Hindu first” nation with its own kind of strong politics.
Adityanath has complained publicly about what his supporters call ‘love jihad’: interfaith marriages, which many Hindu nationalists believe are merely attempts by Muslim men to convert Hindu women. He also banned the slaughter of cows, which are considered sacred by many Hindus.
Adityanath had cow shelters built to house aging livestock, which were soon filled to well beyond their capacity, so much so that in parts of Uttar Pradesh the destruction of crops by stray livestock became an electoral issue.
He has also encouraged Hindu vigilante groups – some of which he helped start before becoming prime minister – to ensure the ban on slaughtering livestock is enforced, and to watch out for instances of ‘love jihad’. violence against Muslims.
Adityanath’s methods “could serve as a model for other states” in India, said Gilles Verniers, a political science professor at Ashoka University who studies Uttar Pradesh politics.
“We’ve seen some leaders cite Adityanath as a model — not just for his policies, blending religion and welfare, but also for the strong politics he represents,” Professor Verniers said.
Karan Deep Singh reported from Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh and Mujib Mashal from New Delhi. Hari Kumara contributed reporting from New Delhi.
