BJP leaders in a huddle amid speculation on Ayodhya ticket

Union Home Minister Amit Shah and UP CM Yogi Adityanath at the BJP office in New Delhi. (Source: PTI)

The under-construction Ram temple in Ayodhya is all set to occupy the central place in the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) campaign for Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, with speculation gaining ground that Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is likely to contest the polls from that seat.

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The BJP and its top leaders from Uttar Pradesh, including Mr. Adityanath; Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya; and general secretary of organisation for the State unit Sunil Bansal, have been in a huddle with the national leadership of the party, including party president J.P. Nadda, Home Minister Amit Shah, and Education Minister and BJP in-charge for the polls in U.P. Dharmendra Pradhan, for the last two days, after which this speculation has gained ground.

Earlier, Mr. Adityanath had openly declared that he would be fighting the forthcoming polls as an MLA candidate, a sort of challenge to the Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Akhilesh Yadav and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Mayawati, who had both declined to contest personally. At that time, Mr. Adityanath had said he was prepared to fight from any seat, be it Mathura in western Uttar Pradesh, or Ayodhya, or Varanasi. BJP MP in the Rajya Sabha, Harnath Yadav, had in fact written a letter to the party high command, requesting Mr. Adityanath contest from Mathura, a suggestion Mr. Harnath Yadav said he had received in a dream from Lord Krishna.

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The decision to fight from Ayodhya, however, if borne out in an actual announcement, will not be based on something as ephemeral as a dream, but as a cold political calculation. Ayodhya is the centre of the BJP’s appeal to the larger Hindu vote bank, and Mr. Adityanath’s statement on how the elections this time would be between “80 Vs. 20” alludes to this politics.

The BJP’s “manthan” or discussion over strategy and for nomination tickets for the first phase of polling on February 10 in U.P. will lead to a meeting of the party’s central election committee on January 16 or around then, and the announcement may be made at the time.

Ayodhya will be going to polls in the fifth phase of the seven-phase polls in Uttar Pradesh.