Adityanath launches BJP campaign for 2022 U.P. Assembly election

Mr. Adityanath said that 4.5 lakh new appointments had been made in his tenure without any “bhai-bhatijavad” (nepotism), regionalism, casteism or dispute (Source: PTI)

With just a couple of months left for the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is preparing to draft its election manifesto, the process for which was launched on Wednesday with the “UP number one” campaign.

Issues related to cow protection, law and order, farmers, and alleged caste and minority appeasement, ranged high in the address by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath during the event as he juxtaposed his performance in the last five years with that of the previous Samajwadi Party (SP) government.

Every appointment made in U.P. before 2017 would be “controversial” because of one family’s eagerness for “vasooli” (extortion), Mr. Adityanath said, taking at dig at the family of SP president Akhilesh Yadav.

Referring to the 2015 controversy over the appointment of Sub Divisional Magistrates (SDM) and the results of the U.P Public Service Commission (UPPSC), Mr. Adityanath targeted the previous SP government and accused it of favouring Yadavs, although he did not name the Other Backward Class (OBC) community. Out of 86 SDMs, 66 had been appointed from “one specific caste”, and “merit was ignored”, he said.

Polarising other Hindu communities against the Yadavs and Muslims, the core support base of the SP, has been a key part of the BJP narrative in U.P. over the past few years and the party is again trying to re-ignite controversies pertaining to the SP rule.

Mr. Adityanath said that 4.5 lakh new appointments had been made in his tenure without any “bhai-bhatijavad” (nepotism), regionalism, casteism or dispute.

Claiming that the BJP had fulfilled all promises made in its election manifesto released in 2017, Mr. Adityanath said the BJP would now seek fresh suggestions from people across all 403 constituencies to draft a Lok Kalyan Patra for 2022 under the “Sujhaav aapka, sankalp hamara” (‘your suggestion, our resolve’) campaign.

Mr. Adityanath accused the previous governments of “insulting” symbols of faith, firing at farmers, allowing cow slaughter and cow smuggling, and withdrawing cases against “terrorists” and providing them security. On the other hand, he said, the BJP government had shut down “illegal” abattoirs, created fear among professional criminals and “mafia”, rehabilitated around seven lakh destitute cows in cow shelters, curbed cow smuggling, waived off farm loans, and ensured that “terrorists” don’t step inside the State.