The most complex political geography in India, Uttar Pradesh goes to polls next year, BJP which has been out for power in this state for quite sometime may be having its best winning chance this time and how a strong CM candidate would bolster its chances.
People of Uttar Pradesh go through a strange phenomenon every year during the extended summer season. With the onset of summers in the April as the hot wave called loo start hitting the region and the mercury rises to as high as late 40s people start craving for rains, which would lower down the temperature and assuage the heat. But as the rain hits, the freedom from heat is temporary and the humid weather combined with still high temperature hits causing intense discomforting weather. This makes people say that the former dry heat was good , at least it did not have the killer humidity and would dry up the sweat. Reason, there is no third option.
Something similar has been happening in the political arena for past some elections as government after government people vote for SP or BSP thinking that other was better as people do not have a third option to vote for, with both the national parties unable to present a credible CM face. While Congress has never been an option since ages , BJP has not been able to put a strong leader after Rajnath Singh served as the last BJP CM.
Hence , a credible leadership face by BJP which could challenge the two strong CM candidates Mayawati and the current CM Akhilesh Yadav would bolster its chances as the party is riding high on the popularity of PM Modi and the development work undertaken by some of its ministers. Also, going by the vote percentages BJP got 42.30% votes in the 2014 general elections which was way more than what SP secured in 2012 legislative elections in order to secure 224 seats it bagged.
Thus, even though extrapolating the vote percentages of general elections to legislative one would not be a correct assessment, in a multi pronged elections and many political alliances would form and break before the polls, a strong CM candidate who can take on the other two strong leaders can make this election a cake walk for BJP.
Also, some of the last election results have demonstrated that people have started giving decisive mandate to strong leaders and the party/coalition which has been able to project itself as winner has walked away with the win with high margin. Nitish Kumar in Bihar and Sonowal in Assam are the prime examples.
One of the reasons for BJP to project the CM candidate is that in the current set of local leaders in UP there are no obvious choices (like Gadkari and Fadnavis in Maharashtra) as Kalyan Singh has retired and Rajnath Singh is in centre , thus it becomes imperative for the party to project a face in the coming elections.
So all in all this looks to be the best chance for BJP in past some time and people of Uttar Pradesh may get to have a third weather option next year. Will that be winters, spring ot tropical summer will be judged sometime after if the party wins.
Yasharth Rastogi
