Wary of a backlash from the electorally influential 'Jat' community and the farmers in the western Uttar Pradesh, which will go to the polls in the first phase of polling on February 10, the BJP has virtually carpet-bombed the region with top party leaders launching door-to-door campaigning and holding interactive programs with the electorate.
On Saturday, as many as four senior leaders of the saffron party, including union home minister Amit Shah, UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath, Union Minister Smriti Irani and UP deputy chief minister Dinesh Sharma campaigned for the party candidates in different parts of the region.
All these leaders, except Sharma, raked up the 2013 Muzaffarnagar communal riots and virtually warned the electorate that riots could happen again if the Samajwadi Party (SP) was voted to power. Besides the riots, the BJP leaders also raked up the killing of the two youths from the 'Jat' community in Muzaffarnagar which had resulted in the communal flare-up in the region in 2013.
"Have you forgotten the 2013 communal riots in Muzaffarnagar?" Shah asked the electorate during an interaction in Muzaffarnagar on Saturday even as he alleged that the victims were charged as rioters while the rioters were made victims.
Smriti Irani, who campaigned in Meerut, went a step further and asked the electorate if they could ever forget the sacrifice of Sachin and Gaurav (the two brothers who were allegedly killed by the members of the other community when the duo protested bid to molest their sister) in Muzaffarnagar in 2013, which led to communal violence which claimed 63 lives and displaced thousands of others.
"The brothers died while trying to save their sister... you must remember their sacrifice," Smriti said while interacting with the electorate in Meerut.
Adityanath, who campaigned in Ghaziabad and 'Jat' dominated Baghpat, also raked up the communal riots and cautioned the people against voting for the SP-RLD alliance.
"We gave you (people) riot free state... we renovated Hindu religious places like Kashi and Mathura... they (SP) constructed kabristan (graveyards)... Do you remember the 2013 riots?" Adityanath asked during the interaction.
Political analysts said that the aggressive 'Hindutva' push in the western region by the BJP reflected that it was wary of the 'Jat' backlash and also that its efforts to placate the community and the farmers had not yielded the desired results.
"It seems the BJP has realised that it may not repeat the 2017 performance in the region unless the polls are polarised along communal lines and hence the aggressive Hindutva push," remarked a Lucknow based political analyst.
SP leaders also said that flooding the region by so many senior leaders by the BJP clearly showed that the saffron party had seen the writing on the wall. "BJP appears to have conceded defeat... therefore they are resorting to Hindutva and polarisation," said an SP leader here.
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