New Delhi, May 29 – If the BJP’s stunning victory in Uttar Pradesh is a tribute to Narendra Modi’s charisma and achievements, it is also a testimony to the ability of his long-term friend and disciple, Amit Shah, who revived the moribund party in the state in his capacity as its chief planner and strategist.
The elections saw the BJP-led NDA’s tally Uttar Pradesh rocket from a mere 10 in 2009 to 73. Its vote-share too has risen to more than 40 per cent from a meagre 15 per cent. But how did an outsider like Shah, who never even had a feel of UP politics, brought about the turnaround?
Restoring old glory:
When Shah took over the state BJP, at the behest of its national president Rajnath Singh, he inherited a party that was in total disarray. The BJP was out of power for almost two decades and for 12 years it had neither fought the village-tehsil-jilla panchayat elections nor the cooperative elections. Even its booth-level workers had become inactive or had defected to other parties.
The party was also devoid of any crowd-pulling or winnable names such as Vasundhara Raje of Rajasthan or Shivraj Singh Chauhan of Madhya Pradesh. The state’s caste-based politics too had proved debilitating for the party, with 42 per cent of the population already polarised along Yadav-Muslim-Jatav lines.
Singh’s brief to Shah, who waded into the mess, was simple: Restore the old grandeur of BJP. The party gives you full freedom to take decisions and act.” Having been appointed as the party general secretary in May 2013, Shah travelled 9,300 kilometres by road and rail, spreading Modi’s message and developmental vision to almost 33 per cent of the 80,000 villages in Uttar Pradesh.
He started by holding meetings with the losing MPs and MLAs in nine different zones of the state, which he himself decided, and read out the causes of their defeat.
One of his first decisions was to restore the caste balance in the state. He found out that BJP supporters were hijacked by other parties including the Bahujan Samaj Party(BSP), whose leader Mayawati allegedly practised the politics of grafting Brahmins on to the Dalit and OBC vote-bank of late BSP leader Kanshi Ram.
To stem this, Shah convened booth committees based on the principle that each committee will have a pro-rata representation of the dominant castes from that particular booth.
To revive the ground-level party leadership, he also announced that the “BJP will henceforth contest all elections in the state.”The losing MPs and MLAs were then asked to cash in on the Modi wave by reaching out to the students in schools and colleges.
His next step was in connecting the party with people living in remote villages without modern-day comforts and information avenues such as television and newspapers, known as dark zones. With the help of Prashant Kishor, Modi’s technical strategy expert, Shah arranged 450 ‘Raths’, specially-designed vehicles, fitted with LCD screens to disseminate the party’s message in the so-called dark zones.
Riding the wave:
The golden rule for ticket distribution came next. Only candidates who lived in their respective constituencies were allotted tickets. Exceptions were made only for eight including Modi, Singh, Hema Malini and Kalraj Mishra.
Even Siddharth Singh, the BJP spokesperson, was denied ticket on the basis of this principle. “My entire strategy is aimed at reconnecting the UP BJP to the roots taking advantage of the charisma of Narendrabhai,” says Shah.
His yet another contribution was to rope in people at the lowest rung to become a part of the Modi wave. He made sure that every village in the state sends at least one jeep filled with local people to attend a Modi rally. This helped him in connecting at least 70 per cent of the UP villages, directly with Modi.
People like Manish Manjul, an RSS functionary, who has known Shah for many years, are already gushing about his organisational skills and even projecting him as a future UP chief minister.
“UP doesn’t have a leader with the ability of Shah,” says an elated Manjul. “He (Shah) should be prepared to take responsibility as the chief minister of UP. He has the ability to transform the state,” he says.
Like his mentor Modi, Shah’s success too, lies not solely in brain power, but in implementing tough decisions. Clearly, the nation will get to hear more from him in the coming days.
-INDIA TODAY
