Ahead of Uttar Pradesh elections, BJP's big Brahmin push

In the upcoming assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is working hard to stay ahead of the race to woo a specific set of voters – the state’s Brahmins.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s inauguration of the Kashi Vishwanath corridor, and his visit to Ayodhya during Diwali are part of these attempts. The party also carried out ‘Prabuddh Varg Sammelans’ across the state in September to reach out to them.

The party will also try to project key religious places as part of a religious circuit, which seeks to build UP as a place of faith as well as one that is bringing in economic growth, said a state leader.

Varanasi’s Kashi Vishwanath Corridor, Mathura’s Banke Bihari temple, Mirzapur’s Vindhyavasini temple and the Ganga Expressway are part of the circuit, in addition to the Ayodhya temple. These sites of religious importance in the state will be linked to the Char Dham circuit, which will feature prominently in the party’s poll outreach in Uttarakhand, said the leader.

“The Ganga Expressway will fire up all the cities along its route, and there will be a lot of jobs for the local population in the cities that fall on the map. The idea is to highlight economic growth as well as religious sentiment,” said the leader.

But it is not as easy as it looks. The party is worried about the perception among the state’s Brahmin voters that the Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government has not done enough for the community. To add to that, Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party’s outreach attempts could play spoilsport.

Senior party leaders that DH spoke to said that the party is “worried” about the state’s Brahmin voters. The party perceives them as the end to a crucial opportunity, one that has consequences in a significant part of Eastern UP.

“The vote bank is a cause for concern, and the party is working on subverting the anger,” said the leader, who is a national office bearer.

Gangster Vikas Dubey’s death in a police encounter has fed into the perception. This could also explain the BJP’s silence over the removal of junior home minister Ajay Mishra Teni.

The community holds sway in a significant part of Eastern UP; from Gorakhpur to Varanasi, including areas such as Devariya and Balia. Leaders said that the perception might affect the party’s chances in one of the five assembly seats under the Gorakhpur parliamentary constituency. Caimpiyarganj, Pipraich, Gorakhpur Urban, Gorakhpur Rural and Sahjanwa constituencies come under the Gorakhpur Parliamentary seat.

BJP Lok Sabha MP from Kannauj Subrat Pathak said that the idea that the Brahmins are not voting for the BJP is a misplaced one. “Brahmins are nationalistic and the BJP is a nationalistic party,” he said.

Pathak also said that the community has wide representation within the party in key government appointments, as Parliamentarians and within the party’s organisational structure, too. Party president J P Nadda and Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma are some of the party’s prominent Brahmin faces.

The Brahmin vote in UP is a swing vote. It has voted in favour of the dominant party historically, save for two terms – in 2007 and in 2012.

Post poll surveys by CSDS Lokniti suggest that in 2007 40 per cent of the Brahmins voted for the BJP, and in 2012, this fell marginally to 38 per cent. In 2017, however, the community overwhelmingly voted for the BJP, as much as 80 per cent.

Sanjay Kumar of the CSDS-Lokniti said that the community constitutes 8 to 9 per cent of the state’s voters. In recent years, he says, the community’s trust has shifted from Congress to the BJP.

“The idea is that there is an anger that the ruling party is not doing much. But, this unhappiness is only till expressing that anger verbally, but on the day of election, the community might still vote for the party. Those who are very angry just might not vote,” said Kumar.

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