People want credible govt that delievers, not mere slogans for votes

The speed with which the saffron clad chief minister of Uttar Pradesh and the most suited recommendation of the RSS, seer turned politician Yogi Aditya Nath became overwhelmingly popular and the storm in the eyes of the opposition parties including some of his bete noires within BJP, the Gorakhpur and Phulpur debacles have brought him on ground for the time being, though the former is still too over confident and seems little bogged down by the defeats.

In the recently held TV 18’s conclave the Yogi Aditya Nath seemed hardly perturbed with these defeats but rather seemed more confident when he announced that the BJP led NDA under the dynamic and dashing leadership of prime minister Modi is bound to stage a come back with historic majority in the 2019 general elections and that the results of the UP by elections won’t affect the party’s chances anymore as the wrongs would be fully corrected in the near future and the party would emerge as a more stronger and cohesive force.

Sounds ironical. Despite so much of saffronisation of the entire environment in Uttar Pradesh by almost colouring the CM’s secretariat annexe buildings to schools to buses to Haj Commitee office building to gates of vegetable markets in Banaras to using saffron coloured towels, school bags and even text books and ordering encounters of criminals to weed out criminalism and corruption from the administrative and political set up of the state, the eloquent and over confident pro hindu chief minister could not ensure the victory of the party’s candidates in his own home turf Gorakhpur and in his deputy’s constituency Phulpur.

Expriencing two bypoll defeats in just a years’ time while heading the state as its CM and that too in his own home turf ruled for over 25 years unambiguously gives the impression that Yogi Adityanath’s personal image and that of his party are on the downslide. It seems that the people of the state are fed up for being manipulated repeatedly on religious issues such as Ram Temple or so much of tall talks on saffronisation or majoritarianism.

What people really want is communal harmony, job avenues, quality education, cheaper essential commodities, quality standard of living, cheaper or free education and free treatment in hospitals with better healthcare facilities. They do want eradication of criminalism and criminals from the society ridden with lawlessness but don’t want arbitrary encounters.

They want an honest government that would eradicate corruption too but also expect a government that establishes communal harmony, amity, mutual trust and brotherhood in the society not communal roits that are making peoples’ life hell on highly communally surcharged statements of politicians. The farmers lot need to be improved and agrarian sector resurrected for the good of the farmers and their poor and debt ridden families.

Yogi Aditya Nath was being higjly apreciated for his various pro people works in the state but from the political CEO one never expects prejudiced ideology or line of action that gives the smack of majoritarianism or saffronisation. Uttar Pradesh is the largest state of the country where the minorities, dalits, backwards etc are in sizeable numbers and influence good number of parliamentary and legislative seats.

In Phulpur and Gorakhpur constituencies the minorities, dalits and backwards have voted enblock in favour of the SP candidates on the backing of BSP and the pro majority voters have avoided coming to polling stations thus preferring to stay back at homes. What does this mean? Its a clear indication that the people are least influenced by the factor of majoriatarianism in the name of Ram Temple or saffronisation but have preferred to go behind their old political leaders like BSP’s Mayavati or Samajvadi’s Akhilesh Yadav giving a clear indication that things are not the same as were a year ago and in 2014 when BJP secured 323 seats in the UP assembly elections and 73 out of 80 parliamentary seats.

Political analysts say that the saturation point of majoritarianism has crossed the peak now as people of the state and the country want development, jobs, better living condition, lowering of sky rocketting prices of essential commodities, resurrection of agrarian sector and improvement in the economic condition of the farmers, communal harmony and the governments that work and deliever not believes on mere rhetorics. Ine will be shocked to learn that according to UP police, 44 criminals have been killed in 1,322 encounters between 20 March 2017 and 5 March 2018.

Despite the uproar by leaders and activists, both Chief Minister Adityanath and Director General of Police O P Singh have made it clear that encounters of criminals were going to continue. An important fact which has been suppressed by opposition and human rights activists is that as per legal stipulation, all encounters are subjected to police and judicial probes and that not one encounter has been found to be staged in these probes. Another fact which is ignored is the number of casualties on police side. Besides four policemen losing their lives, 283 men in uniform have been injured in these encounters.
SUNIL NEGI