Tuesday, March 8, was the third consecutive day Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had confined himself to his 'mutt' at Gorakhpur, even as exit polls by at least half a dozen agencies projected a comfortable majority and even landslide victory for the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP).
The exit polls projections indicate that factors like farmers' unrest, unemployment, price rise, people's plight on account of stray cattle, and Covid-19 mismanagement have had no impact on voters' minds. Or else, all these factors were swept away under a silent undercurrent of Hindutva.
Some BJP insiders believe that the chief minister is sulking because he was cold-shouldered by the party high command that left him high and dry when the election was at its peak in Purvanchal, his own political bastion. "The manner in which Yogi Ji's pictures were not given space in the party's posters sent from Delhi for display in his own constituency Gorakhpur, where hoardings too carried only Modi ji's face, is bound to make him unhappy", claimed a party insider. While this was officially attributed to "cutting down Yogi's poll expenses", there are not many takers for this explanation.
Sources close to the 'mutt' saw this as a blatant sidelining of Adityanath, who was also kept away from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's rallies and roadshows in several parts of Purvanchal, where his influence was always believed to be supreme.
On March 5, he chose to address a press conference, which was earlier scheduled after the last phase of polling on March 7. At that press conference, in which he went about patting his own back, was his last public appearance, after which he decided to put himself behind the closed doors of his 'mutt'. The UP chief minister made a brief appearance before a captive TV camera to express his thanks on the day the exit polls were announced. But even then, he looked tired and tense.
His supporters believe the BJP's top leadership will have to give due credit to Adityanath if the exit polls turn out to be correct. If it comes about, the thumping victory cannot be attributable to Modi and Modi alone. Under the circumstances, there is no way that anyone would be able to take away Adityanath's privilege to be rated as number two in the party hierarchy.
Significantly, a senior BJP Rajya Sabha member, who has deep roots in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), was heard asserting on a popular TV channel on Monday, "The BJP is not a party with any hierarchy; everyone is a worker." His emphasis was on refuting the suggestion of "number two" status for Adityanath. A well-known BJP supporter and analyst went to the extent of declaring, "Modi ji is the top leader of the BJP, but there is no number two or anything like that."
That suggests how Adityanath's role in the UP victory is likely to be treated in the BJP camp. A section of the BJP leaders was also ready to bet that Adityanath may not see a second term as chief minister and instead be inducted at the Centre on one pretext or the other. While that may be possible in a scenario where the BJP wins UP with a slender margin, it may not be practically possible for the party leadership to do so if it is a thumping victory, as the exit polls have shown.
Experience shows that Adityanath is quite adept in the art of bulldozing his way. Even though he was not in the party's scheme of things to be tipped as chief minister throughout the 2017 campaign, he managed to wangle the prized position after the party swept the election. It was common knowledge how Manoj Sinha, the then Union minister of state for communications and Railways, currently lieutenant governor of Kashmir, was Modi's first choice. Sinha was busy performing an auspicious puja at Varanasi as a prelude to his "swearing-in" when he received a call to return to Delhi instead of heading for Lucknow.
Over the five years he has spent as chief minister, Adityanath has even branded himself as "bulldozer baba". Thus, if the exit polls finally match with the final poll outcome on March 10, it may not be any mean task for anyone to obstruct his path to don the coveted mantle of the UP chief minister once again, whereby he would create history in the country's most populous state.
(Sharat Pradhan is a senior journalist and author based in Lucknow)
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.