Author: Sharat Pradhan

Lucknow Central | A Field Day for the Corrupt in Uttar Pradesh

The theft of Rs 65 crore, in cash, from the home of a once powerful IAS officer has raised questions about the state of affairs in UP.

The theft of Rs 65 crore, in cash, from the home of a once powerful IAS officer who still enjoys clout with the honest UP chief minster has opened a pandora’s box of rampant corruption in the state. While the theft never got registered with the police for obvious reasons, large scale corruption by the officer and several others has come to the fore. Does it nullify claims of the much hyped ‘Ram Rajya’ in the country’s most populous and poor state?

After a Mega Roadshow, Narendra Modi Files Nomination From Varanasi

Varanasi will vote in the seventh and last phase of polling on June 1, just before the results are out on June 4 to spell out the political destiny of the country.

Varanasi: Barely 12 hours after accomplishing his much-hyped five-km-long mega roadshow through the streets  of this ancient Hindu city, Prime Minster Narendra Modi on Tuesday filed his nomination for the Varanasi Lok Sabha seat.

Like his multiple visits to his constituency that is popularly known as the city of Baba Vishwanath, Modi’s nomination was yet again a huge event. And to top it all,Modi ensured that his proposers represent different sections of Hindu society. Thus if there was well-known local astrologer Gyaneshwar Shastri representing the Brahmin community, there were Baijnath Patel and Lalchand Kushwaha to fit the OBC bill, while Sabjay Sonkar was specially brought on board as a Dalit. That no Muslim figured among his proposers was a foregone conclusion.

Varanasi will vote in the seventh and last phase of polling on June 1, just before the results are out on June 4 to spell out the political destiny of the country.

As if to endorse their commitment to seeing Modi as India’s prime minister for the third consecutive time, chief ministers of a dozen states descended on this soil to be in attendance. Most prominent of these remained UP chief minister Adityanath, whose saffron robes provided the Hindutva hue to the whole show. Besides, leaders of smaller political outfits which form part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) also made it a point to stand behind the prime minister.

Unlike the previous day when he meandered through the streets of Varanasi atop a decked up vehicle, donning a sparkling saffron silk kurta with a spotless white waistcoat, Modi was now in different attire. Draped in a white kurta and a blue waistcoat, he walked into the chamber of the district magistrate cum returning officer, before whom he submitted his nomination papers at 11:40 am. This was not his Hindutva icon face that one witnessed the previous evening. This was the look of a prime minister who perhaps needed to impress upon all and sundry that he actually believed in the façade of his oft repeated “Sabka saath, sabka vikas, sabka vishwas” slogan.

He looked all set to take the plunge to once again ride on to his much desired power pedestal, which he had acquired on two earlier occasions in 2014 and 2019.

After all, he is aspiring to go into the annals of India’s history by becoming prime minister for the third consecutive time – a feat only Jawaharlal Nehru is credited with. Whether his dream gets fulfilled will be determined on June 4, when the EVMs will unravel what is hidden in them.

His desperation to fulfil that dream has been writ large ever since he went about campaigning across the length and breadth of the country ever since the current electioneering began a month ago. It is another matter that much water has flown between the first and  fourth phases of  the seven-phase 2024 Lok Sabha election. And reports coming in from different states seem to suggest that a repeat of 2014 or 2019 could well be an uphill task for Modi .

No wonder, he has been moving heaven and earth to maintain his Hindutva identity, which he obviously considers to be his USP to garner votes – even if that feeds off of breeding hatred.

Narendra Modi on a roadshow in Varanasi on Monday. Photo: X/@narendramodi

Meanwhile, after spending the night at Varanasi’s Diesel and Locomotive Workshop (DLW) guest house, Modi began his day at 9:15, when he carried out a high-profile Ganga Arti before ‘Ma Ganga’ at the Dashwamedh Ghat , followed by a visit to the Kaal Bhairav temple and a brief cruise on the Ganga waters. He had already offered his prayers at the Kashi Vishwanath temple, where he concluded his spectacular roadshow on Monday evening.

INDIA bloc nominee and Congress leader Ajay Rai is contesting against Modi and this will be his third face-off with him from the soil of Varanasi. Rai, who is also president of the UP Congress, has been a five-time MLA from UP. Interestingly, he began his political innings in the BJP from which he got elected three times to the state assembly. Eventually he left the saffron camp and crossed over to the Congress as late as in 2009. He was handpicked by the Congress to take on Modi for the first time in 2014, when AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal also chose to challenge Modi in Varanasi. Rai finished third in that election.

The BJP leadership has been busy proclaiming a record victory for him this time, when they are targeting a margin of eight lakh votes. In some exclusive interviews given by him to select TV channels from a jetty on the Ganga, Modi remained at his best to display his emotional ties with Varanasi and its people. Thus if “Ma Ganga ne mujhe bulaya hai (The Ganga has called out to me)” was the buzz he created in 2014, he now raised the pitch to proclaim, “Ma Ganga has adopted me in these ten years.”

UP’s Kashi Temple Police Donning Saffron Robes Raises Eyebrows

The policemen wore saffron dhoti and kurta instead of khaki shirt and pants. The women officers wore saffron shalwar and kameez.

Lucknow: Shortly after Yogi Adityanath came to power in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, in 2017, Hinduisation seemed to be at the top of his agenda. It started with renaming cities and towns with Islamic associations. This was followed by changing the colour of government buildings and even state road transport buses to saffron, among other things.

These moves took a drastic turn 48 hours ago when policemen stationed at Varanasi’s Kashi Vishwanath temple were made to wear saffron robes. It wasn’t just about altering the colour of the official police uniform. It involved a transition from khaki shirt and pants to saffron dhoti and kurta for men, and saffron shalwar and kameez for women officers.

Whether this too follows a diktat from the top is not known.

Yet, the fact remains that the new Varanasi Police Commissioner Mohit Agarwal formally directed his team to do the makeover of the police engaged in the security of the Kashi Vishwanath temple. Prime Minister Narendra Modi redeveloped the temple as the grand Kashi Vishwanath corridor.

Agarwal is said to have expressed his desire to affect the change in uniform of these cops at a security review meeting for the temple that was held in Varanasi three days ago.

The news broke out only when the policemen on duty were seen in the new saffron attire barely 24 hours later.

“When I went for my daily morning darshan to the temple, I noticed that something was amiss, because I did not see any policemen inside the main shrine. I inquired and was told that the uniform of the cops has changed,” said a devotee who lives in the vicinity of the temple He said he usually starts his day with a darshan at the temple.

He told The Wire over the phone from Varanasi, “I fail to understand what good is this going to do to the security of the temple. Who doesn’t understand that men in khaki make all the difference in crowd control or regulation? Who is going to listen to these fellows clad in saffron clothes?”

However, this logic is either not understood by the official machinery or those at the helm of affairs and more keen on pleasing the political masters.

Given that the move has surprised a significant portion of the state police, it has become a subject of jokes throughout the region. However, there is also a faction of police officers who are pleased with the decision.

However, the common feeling is that this is the brainchild of those who are out to prove themselves as ‘more loyal than the king’. It comes as no surprise, given Yogi’s obsession for the saffron, that some  sycophants have chosen to go for this move, disregarding the state’s uniform rules.

“Every state police in entitled to its own rules for uniform, but if any change is affected in the uniform [rules], it can be done through a procedure, not on the basis of whims and fancies of any individual officer or politician,” said former director general of MP police Yashovardhan Azad, who was also the Central Information Commissioner.

However, a former UP Director General V.N. Rai is willing to give his junior colleagues the benefit of the doubt. He said, “Making cops dress up like the local priest could help them remain incognito inside the sanctum sanctorum of the temple to keep a quiet tab on mischief mongers. But surely such an arrangement would not work if all policemen engaged in temple security were to be made to wear this kind of uniform.”

Former IAS officer Vijai Shankar Pandey, who retired as secretary to the Government of India, finds the move “not only violative of the uniform rules but also in gross contravention of the Indian constitution.” According to him, “it sends a wrong message to the people in a secular, democratic nation like ours. Even if this has been done in pursuance of any diktat from above, it is the duty of an IPS officer to say “no” to such unconstitutional orders.”

Pandey feels that such practice should be discontinued, “otherwise don’t be surprised that over a period of time, cops wearing such dresses would start behaving like priests and not carry out their duties.”

However, Varanasi Police Commissioner Agarwal found nothing wrong with his order. “This is nothing new. Such an experiment was carried out  earlier as well. I have done [this] after consultation,” he claimed.

So don’t be surprised if the top cop in Varanasi also chooses to don the saffron – so what if it doesn’t help to improve policing, it will surely earn him many brownie points. For all you know, he is looking up to.

In Grand Narendra Modi Show, BJP’s Temple Movement Stalwarts Get the Snub

Prime Minister Narendra Modi stole the show right from the time of his landing in Ayodhya. He thanked the judiciary in a long speech but missed the names of a few key people.

Ayodhya (Uttar Pradesh): The grand consecration ceremony of the Ram temple here a day ago was clearly a Narendra Modi show all the way. 

Barring one or two of them, prominent Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders who spearheaded the temple movement over the years remained conspicuous by their absence at the four-hour glittering event that was the high point of this historic day in the ancient temple town that now stands transformed into a city reverberating with chants of “Jai Shree Ram”.

Modi literally stole the show right from the time of his landing in Ayodhya, where, apart from 800-odd VVIP guests, lakhs of devotees had converged to get a glimpse of the new temple at the long-debated birthplace of the Hindu deity Ram. The site was given to the temple side following a verdict by India’s Supreme Court.

The ‘pran pratishtha’ or consecration of the new idol of a five-year-old Ram was also performed by Modi – as was clearly seen – along with Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat. Following certain controversies that arose over Modi’s religious incapacities to carry out such a ‘high profile’ ritual, the temple trust had sought to give the impression that a total of 15 ‘jajmans’ or persons authorised to perform the puja had been handpicked for the rituals. However, what was apparent was that those 15 jajmans were sidelined while Modi who was stated to be there only as a symbolic jajman actually carried out the prime share of rituals with Bhagwat in tow. 

In a significant deviation from the past, Modi – who is the prime minister – made it a point to acknowledge the role of the judiciary in paving the path for the construction of the temple.

However, he did not talk about the defining role of BJP stalwarts like former deputy prime minister Lal Krishna Advani, or former BJP chief Murli Manohar Joshi, or frontline activists like Vinay Katiyar, Mahant Dharam Das and others who are believed to have been kept away from the ceremony. 

Also read | Ayodhya’s Class of 1992: The Key Conspirators

While the Ram Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, entrusted with the task of issuing invitations, did extend a formal invite to both Advani and Joshi, both were stated to have been advised by those very trust officials to avoid travelling in view of their old age and accompanying physical infirmities. What prevented the prime minister to make necessary arrangements for their travel is a mystery. 

However, the fact remains that Advani’s role in the temple movement is unparalleled. It was his ‘Somnath to Ayodhya’ Rath Yatra in 1990 that gave a huge boost to the temple movement, particularly after the yatra was stopped by then Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, who also put Advani behind bars. Advani is also credited with saving Modi’s scalp, when the then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee appeared likely to sack Modi as Gujarat chief minister on account of the infamous communal riots there. 

Top Bajrang Dal leader and former BJP MP Vinay Katiyar, who was also among the key accused in the Babri Masjid demolition case, and had played a very aggressive role in the temple movement, was known to be present in Ayodhya. Yet, he did not attend the ceremony simply because he did not get a formal invite. And the same was the case with Mahant Dharam Das, the chief priest of Ayodhya’s oldest temple, Hanuman Garhi, who also stood at the forefront of the temple campaign. 

In his hour-long address, the prime minister sought to point out how the ‘pran pratishtha’ of the Ram temple marked the beginning of a new era. Terming the event a ‘defining moment,’ he urged people not to take it as a moment of just victory but also one of vinay (prayer or humility). He also expressed the need for people to imbibe the rich ideals of Ram, who believed in compassion, justice and peace.

“This day marks the change of an era and today’s generations should feel blessed to be witness it today; we should feel privileged and understand that we must now lay the foundations for a thousand years ahead,” said Modi, amidst cheers.

Also read: Night of Terror: The Dust Kicked up Before the Babri Masjid Demolition

Modi made it a point to tell everyone that he was at the Ram Setu a day earlier. He also recalled how Ram, too, had begun his return journey from Lanka to Ayodhya from that very spot, after defeating Ravan. He also added that he was here not without observing an 11-day fast, during which he offered prayers at select temples in the southern Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. He made it a point to break that fast in full view of the cameras by accepting water from Govind Dev Giri, treasurer of the temple trust.

Interestingly, the show after the consecration ceremony began with an address by Govind Dev Giri , who only sang paeans for Modi, before handing over the mic to Bhagwat, who also stressed the need for social harmony and compassion, which he reminded, were among the “key ideals of Ram.” 

Uttar Pradesh chief minister Adityanath who emphasised on how the ‘pran pratishtha’ marked the virtual revival of the ‘Treta Yug’ (the era of Ram). Significantly, Mahatma Gandhi’s favourite hymn, ‘Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram’ could be heard playing in the background all through the event.

Final Touches in Progress Ahead of the Big Show in Ayodhya Tomorrow

A heavy security blanket is in place, and all entry points into the city have been sealed.

Ayodhya: Unprecedented official activity is on in this ancient temple town that has witnessed a complete makeover for the biggest ever show tomorrow, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi will arrive here for the much-hyped consecration ceremony of the Ram Temple.

The entirety of Ayodhya is already under a heavy security blanket and all entry points to this city have been sealed. Only vehicles bearing special security passes are allowed and those too after ensuring that every occupant of the vehicle has a personal security pass along with his or her Aadhaar card.

Thousands of khakhi-clad policemen are sprawled all over the place, while masons, artisans and both skilled and unskilled labour can be seen giving final touches to every nook and corner of the temple premises, which will be thrown open to people after the long high-profile consecration ceremony.

While Prime Minister Narendra Modi was slated to carry out the entire ritual as a ‘jajman (master of ceremonies)’ himself, the controversies that followed apparently led him to make room for a new jajman.

The questions raised by top religious functionaries including the Shankaracharyas (the tallest priests under the Hindu order) were that the jajman had to necessarily be a Hindu with his wife, who were required to live the life of a saint for 11 days before performing the ‘pran pratishtha (consecration)’ ceremony. Evidently, this criticism left  Modi with no option but to opt out. His officials declared that since it would not be possible for the prime minister to set aside all his official obligations for 11 days, hence a a local person, Anil Misra, and his wife Usha were nominated as the new jajman .

A practicing homeopathic doctor, Misra was handpicked by Ram Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust secretary Champat Rai, who has been handling the temple construction work ever since the trust was formed by the Union government following orders of the Supreme Court in November 2019. Rai’s criticism on the issue is believed to have once again led the Trust top brass to get 14 more jajmans to jointly perform the pran pratishtha, where Modi will remain the “symbolic jajman”.  Significantly, the Trust is headed by the prime minister’s former principal secretary Nripendra Misra, a 1966-batch UP cadre IAS officer.

As such, the ceremony will eventually be carried out by a total of 16 jajmans.

The Ram mandir on Sunday. Photo: Shruti Sonkar

According to Trust sources, the 14 jajmans finally added represent different states including Rajasthan, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Assam and Haryana besides UP, and each one of them belongs to a different caste .

The ‘garbh grah’ of the temple was washed with water kept in 81 kalsas (metal containers). This water is stated to have been drawn from different rivers across the country.

The prime minister will be part of the main puja for 50 minutes, after which he will address the guests and people of the country connected live through various TV networks and the digital media. Subsequently, he will also meet the labourers and artisans engaged in the construction of the temple.

In all Modi will spend four hours and 45 minutes in Ayodhya tomorrow. He will land at the newly built Ayodhya international airport at 10:20 am. From there he will take a short helicopter ride to the grounds of Saket Post Graduate College, close to the new Ram Temple.

While issues relating to the jajman have thus been resolved, controversy continues over the idol that will occupy the main garbh grah inside the temple. While the Trust and the ruling dispensation have made it loud and clear that the new idol of Lord Ram will be up for pran pratishtha at the main garbh grah, prominent local priests and even the highly revered Hindu Shankaracharyas strongly feel the the original idol of ‘Ram Lalla’ merits a place in the garbh grah.

“The original idol that had appeared inside the structure of the then Babri Masjid on the night of December 22-23, 1949, ought to be placed in the main garbh grah. And that idol does not require any pran patishtha because that is the idol which was also worshiped all along inside the makeshift temple, raised after the demolition of the mosque structure,” pointed out Mahant Dharam Das, who is the chief priest of Ayodhya’s oldest temple, Hanuman Garhi, and also the head of Nirvani Akhara.

He is also very critical of the temple Trust, which according to him has been “distorting and violating” various Hindu prescriptions laid out in the scriptures to suit the powers that be.

According to the Trust, the list of official invitees for the key pran pratishtha includes 4,000 sadhus from different parts of the country, 106 leaders of the RSS and VHP, 800 industrialists, 400 labourers, 158 members of the judiciary, 159 artists including filmmakers and actors, 92 sports persons and 164 representatives from social media.

Ayodhya on Sunday. Photo: Shruti Sonkar

The list also has 92 NRIs and about 30-50 invitees from each of the fields of education, finance, defence, science and literature. The number of politicians to be present for the ceremony is just about 100 and only 30 senior bureaucrats will find place at the ceremony. About 8,100 chairs have been laid out for the special guests at the venue, while only a select few will remain present inside the temple where the ceremony is to be performed. Giant-size screens have been installed not only in and around the temple area but also all over Ayodhya to enable everyone to witness the spectacle.

Huge screens have also been installed in a specially created media centre as well as along Ram ki Pairi on the banks of the Sarayu river, where spaces have been allotted to different TV and digital media channels. Only Doordarshan and ANI have been allowed inside the main venue at the temple.

Meanwhile, the entire town is lit up with glowing colours, while Ram Bhajans are reverberating from loud speakers installed at intermittent lamp posts. The 50-minute pran pratishtha will commence at 12:05 pm tomorrow.

Sheetla Singh: The Grand Old Editor From Faizabad Who Fought for the News and for Journalists

Not only did the veteran journalist ensure that ‘Jan Morcha’ ran proudly for over six decades and continues to do so, his presence also gave it rare prestige.

Lucknow: Sheetla Singh began his journey in media with a venture that he launched with his mentor, Hargobind. The town was Faizabad, the year was 1958 and the humble seed capital was of Rs 75.

Jan Morcha was born and with hard work and a passionate zeal for journalism, Singh ensured it earned a degree of respectability rare for a Hindi daily in India’s heartland of Uttar Pradesh .

It was his indomitable spirit that not only kept the daily going for six and a half decades, but also gave him the strength to actively oversee the working of the paper. Shortly before he breathed his last in a local hospital earlier today, the 91-year old Singh had been perched on the editor’s chair, planning the next day’s headlines.

Jan Morcha itself was more of a mission than a newspaper. It was a people’s front in the truest sense. It took up the cause of the common man. In building the daily from scratch Singh aligned himself with the pain of those in the lowest rung of society.

I remember him telling me about his early days with Jan Morcha, when he and his guru Hargobind would not only handle everything about the paper but even use the same news sheets when the time came to sleep on the editorial tables they had purchased at an auction for just Rs 3. I can recall how he once told me, “Kitni baar Hargobind ji , hum aur humare teen aur saathi, jo shuru mein ye akhbaar nikalte the, wahin daftar mein khichri paka kar aur kha kar table pe akhbar bicha kar so jaate the.”

Translated, it means, “There were so many times when Hargobind ji, our three other colleagues who were involved with the paper then and I used to cook khichri in the office itself and go off to sleep on the editorial table.’

Newspaper was virtually in his blood.

It was as activists in the then communist party that both he and Hargobind decided to start a daily. Hargobind offered his lifetime’s savings of Rs 75 for the effort. Thanks to the family of Acharya Narendra Deo, who offered them some space, the duo managed to translate their dream into reality on December 5, 1958.

It was the report of the First Press Commission in 1956 that encouraged them to undertake the task. The report floated the idea of an independent media, without any involvement of a funding business house. Jan Morcha was a product of that thought. While Hargobind began as the founder editor of the paper, he handed over the baton to Singh in 1963. In the subsequent years, nearly 247 newspapers were launched under the co-operative movement, but perhaps Jan Morcha was one of the few to survive the vicissitudes of time and remain alive and vibrant for 65 years. 

Also read: The Netaji Mystery: Marking the End of Another ‘Baba’ Story

Today the paper has nearly 50 employees directly on its rolls and about 150 full and part-time correspondents spread across large parts of rural eastern Uttar Pradesh in particular. In order to make the newspaper’s presence felt in the state capital, a Lucknow edition too was launched in 1970, with Hargobind as its head, while Singh chose to hold fort at Faizabad.

However, the wrath of the Emergency on June 26, 1975, was felt heavily on the institution and compelled the Jan Morcha team to fold up the Lucknow edition. Hargobind and his other editorial colleagues were lodged in jail for taking up cudgels with the then dictatorial regime.

Subsequently, Hargobind chose to retire and moved to the hills, but years later in 2016, Singh decided to re-launch the Lucknow edition with the senior journalist Suman Gupta as the resident editor. Gupta had been on the editorial staff for several years in both Faizabad and Lucknow.

As a trade union activist too, I had lots to learn from Sheetla Singh, under whose presidentship of the UP Working Journalists Union, I was a young general secretary in the mid-eighties. Committed to the cause of journalists, he displayed rare courage and conviction in upholding the values of trade unionism. And even as some of his close compatriots did not bat an eyelid to dump the cause of trade unions while succumbing to the lure of greener pastures, Sheetla Singh stuck to his guns and refused to compromise with the larger interest of scribes. As a four-time member of the Press Council of India too, he had earned a big name for keeping the flag flying high for journalists. His contribution as a member of several wage boards for journalists and newspaper employees is also widely recognised.

If scribes today have some sort of social security and other benefits that contribute to their wellbeing, a lot of this is attributable to the grand old editor from Faizabad. Sheetla Singh was a man who was known to all, simply because of his unflinching dedication to the larger cause of the media and mediapersons.

UP: On Backfoot Over Caste Census, Does Tulsidas Couplet Row Allow Yogi to Change the Conversation?

Despite criticism from the opposition, the chief minister has been referring to the controversial couplet from Ramcharitmanas time and again. He responded to the opposition’s attack by calling them ‘anti-Hindu’. 

Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s tenor in repeating a controversial couplet composed by Goswami Tulsidas from the famous epic ‘Ramcharitmanas’ has led many to wonder if he himself endorses the view that is seen as derogatory towards women and the downtrodden castes.

For the second time in the last three days, Yogi sought to raise the pitch on the issue on the floor of the state assembly, while terming all those who question the content as “anti-Hindu”.

“Dhol Ganwar Shudra Pashu Nari Sakal Taadana Ke Adhikari” is a controversial verse which literally means not only equating ‘shudra’, women and cattle with a stupid person but also goes on to add that they deserve to be beaten like a ‘dhol (drum)’.

Whether Tulsidas meant it literally or not has been a debatable issue for centuries. A sizeable section today that takes a sympathetic view of the poet’s sensibility has often sought to explain that this was part of a dialogue between Lord Ram and the Ocean, when he prayed before the Ocean to let him cross over to Lanka to free his wife Sita from demon Ravan’s captivity. This section further contends that the controversial verse is not Ram’s view but that of the Ocean which was portrayed as a villain by coming in Ram’s path to fight Ravan.

But Tulsidas’s detractors question the very basis of this verse, which is undeniably an integral part of the Ramcharitmanas.

What kicked up a storm over this verse, some time back, was Samajwadi Party leader Swami Prasad Maurya’s bid to question it. Swami sought the deletion of such controversial lines from the epic, because of the very obvious bias against not only women but also against ‘shudras’ or the downtrodden castes. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) took the opportunity to flay not only Swami but also condemn and corner the entire Samajwadi Party (SP) as “anti-Hindu”.

While SP left no stone unturned to plead that in no way did its leadership have any intent to desecrate the Ramcharitmanas, BJP’s overbearing multi-media campaign to run SP down as “anti-Hindu” forced the SP on the back foot. Swami was asked to move away from the centre stage, and even as SP raised the pitch on its demand for a caste census, the party leadership replaced Swami with a young OBC leader Rajpal Kashyap to lead the caste census campaign.

Also read: Why the BJP Is Afraid of a Caste Census

Now the demand for a caste-based census has already put  BJP in a piquant situation. The dominant upper caste bias in the party is bound to oppose any demand for a caste-based census, which would expose how the downtrodden communities have been systematically deprived of their legitimate share in governance.

Under these circumstances, there could be a no better weapon than to brand SP as “anti-Hindu”. No wonder, the UP chief minister made it a point to rake up the issue while speaking on the governor’s address in the state assembly on Saturday, February 25.

In his 130-minute long speech in the Vidhan Sabha, he made it a point to emphatically reiterate how anyone questioning Tulsidas’ verse was “anti-Hindu”. That he simply wanted to label the Samajwadi Party as “Hindu Virodhi” and “opposed to Ram” was clearly evident in the chief minister’s vitriolic against the opposition in general and SP in particular.

However, the bottom line of this sequence of events was the chief minister’s virtual endorsement of the controversial verse. It was writ large in his demeanour, the confidence (or brazenness) stemming from the power of the post he holds, which was evident throughout his speech.

 

Mulayam Singh Yadav: The Man Whose Forte Was to Battle Against the Odds

Each time it seemed that the Samajwadi Party founder was down and out, he surprised all and sundry by springing back up with renewed gusto and vigour.

Lucknow: Mulayam Singh Yadav was barely eight years old when India became an independent nation. Born in a humble Yadav family in a remote, under-developed village called Saifai in central Uttar Pradesh’s Etawah district, his family named him “Mulayam” in the hope that he would grow up to be a “soft” and simple man, at best a schoolmaster.

Teacher, he became to start a livelihood. But Mulayam began nurturing dreams right from his early days. And he dreamt big. No wonder, far from turning soft or docile, he chose the rough and tough path on which he rode to reach unexpected heights.

Battling against the odds became his forte, perhaps because of the skills he had initially acquired as a wrestler in the village kushti akhara (wrestling ring). And each time it seemed that he was down and out, he surprised all and sundry by springing back up with renewed gusto and vigour. Be it his long-drawn arrest during the Emergency, his defiance of Vishwanath Pratap Singh’s preference for Ajit Singh over him to head Uttar Pradesh in 1989, or the brutally critical onslaught he faced for protecting the Babri masjid when violent karsevaks stormed the mosque in 1990 – Mulayam never seemed to get cowed down by adversities.

What was unique about him was that he never disconnected himself from his roots, from where he drew his strength. Having risen in politics largely out of the JP movement, Mulayam looked up to Ram Manohar Lohia as his ideologue. And even when he was under fire for deviating from the staunch socialist ideals of Lohia by allowing significant space to a businessman-turned-politician like Amar Singh, he did not hesitate to give Singh such unparalleled prominence that he invited the envy and displeasure of many old-timers within the SP fold.

Yet, when the realisation dawned that Amar Singh was becoming “extra-baggage” and an “eyesore” for his family, Mulayam did not bat an eyelid in sidelining him, bringing an end to Singh’s meteoric rise.

He was absolutely open about his likes and dislikes, which were, more often than not, quite strong. No wonder, amidst much speculation and debate over the selection of his political heir, he chose his son Akhilesh over the brother Shivpal, whom he always hailed as a “hard-working” and “grounded” leader. However, at the same time, he never desisted from even publicly chastising his son for actions he did not approve of.

Yet, there was no one dearer to him than Akhilesh, whom he large-heartedly forgave even after he was divested of the party president’s position that was assumed by the son in a coup. While the political legacy was preserved for Akhilesh, he gave all his material legacy to Prateek, the son from his second wedlock with Sadhana Gupta, who passed away barely a few months before him.

UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav with father Mulayam Singh Yadav. Photo: PTI/Files

Always open to building new relationships, he used this knack to strike alliances with different parties whenever it was the political need of the day. And that made it easy for him to expand his political base, initially limited to just Yadavs. The manner in which he successfully stitched alliances with not just the powerful OBC block of Kurmis, but also smaller backward caste groups was remarkable.

What made him the most potent force against the much taller Congress as well as Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was the sudden surge of Muslim support that he received after his all-out effort to protect the Babri Masjid in 1990. He was not to be cowed down by continued right-wing lashing for resorting to firing on karsevaks, which he vociferously defended as his “duty” to uphold India’s constitution. He took it in stride when his critics labelled him with the title of “Maulana”.

It goes without saying that it was his unflinching and open support of the cause of the country’s 20% minorities that propelled him to the forefront of national politics. That also marked the turning point in the Congress party’s fortunes which plummeted after large sections of Muslims shifted their political loyalty en bloc from the grand old party to the Samajwadi Party. Ironically, today many of those who have inherited his legacy shy away from giving even a feeble voice to serious issues about targeting of the minority community.

Once he was able to enlist the support of Muslims, Mulayam was quick in striking a chord with the Bahujan Samaj Party founder and Dalit icon Kanshi Ram. The latter was convinced that an alliance with Mulayam’s SP, enjoying the support of a chunk of OBCs and Muslims, could bring a political windfall for the duo. And when the two parties contested the state election in the mid-90s, it was a warning bell for both the Congress and BJP.

Sadly, it was the indiscretion of some of his own partymen that resulted in the premature snapping of these ties – the infamous ‘Lucknow State Guest House’ incident, where SP workers unleashed an attack on BSP legislators in reaction to Kanshi Ram’s decision to withdraw support to the Mulayam government. In fact, it was this incident that propelled Mayawati to the fore as Kanshi Ram accepted the BJP’s offer to support a BSP-led government. Instead of donning the mantle himself, Kanshi Ram chose to anoint his closest protégé. With Congress veteran Motilal Vora in place as the state governor, things became much easier for an instant transition of power from Mulayam to Mayawati. The rattled BJP and Congress saw it as an opportune moment to bury the possibility of an SP-BSP combine.

Perhaps no other politician could have reemerged into the mainstream after earning so much disrepute on account of the Guest House incident. But Mulayam’s firm support base did not allow his fate to dwindle. And more than that, he managed to turn the political battle in Uttar Pradesh from one that was four-cornered or three-cornered into a direct contest between the SP and BSP. That led to more than a decade-long phase of power shuttling between these two parties in the country’s most populous state.

His shrewd and mature political moves often invited the displeasure and even wrath of his opponents, yet none could ignore him. No wonder, Mulayam could cast space for his relevance at the centre stage of national politics right until his departure from this world.

Today, it is no surprise that political personalities of different hues – including his sworn political adversaries – were showering rich tributes on him. Sure enough, it was not just his rise from the streets to the skies that gave him a unique place in India’s politics, but what took him beyond was that he was a man of all seasons and for all seasons.

Behind Samajwadi Party’s Shock Defeat, Politicians Who Took Voters for Granted

Two political bastions, Rampur and Azamgarh, gone, SP will have an uphill task to reorganise before the 2024 polls.

The complete defeat of the Samajwadi Party in its two political bastions, Rampur and Azamgarh, has stunned all and sundry, including the Bharatiya Janata Party’s leadership.

BJP’s Uttar Pradesh tally has now gone from 63 to 65 in the Lok Sabha. The state has 80 members in the Lower House.

More than numbers, the loss is painful for SP as the two seats were held by the party’s most significant leaders.

The Azamgarh Lok Sabha seat was held by SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, and Rampur, by Azam Khan. Both had won in the 2019 general election. The by-election came after decisions by these two leaders to opt for assembly seats after the March 2022 state Vidhan Sabha elections.

SP had managed to rise from humiliating defeat in 2017 – when it plummeted to a paltry 46 seats in the 403-member UP assembly – to a respectable level of 111 (125, with allies) in 2022. So what explains this defeat?

Also read: UP Bypolls: As BJP Wrests Bastions From SP, a Question of Who Is to ‘Blame’

Political observers broadly blame it on Akhilesh Yadav, who chose not to campaign even once in either of the constituencies.

While the party’s official spokespersons sought to attribute this to Akhilesh’s “preoccupation with a number of things”, according to some insiders, “Akhilesh bhaiya considered it below his level to campaign for a by-poll in places where even top BJP leaders had not cared to visit.”

Even after Uttar Pradesh chief minister Adityanath campaigned for his party in both Azamgarh and Rampur, Akhilesh was not compelled to follow course.

Ironically, this defeat has given SP an opportunity to create history of sorts. In most by-polls, it is the opposition which usually scores over ruling parties. But the tradition was reversed this time, and Akhilesh’s over-confidence and political immaturity seem largely to blame.

In the bargain, a feather got added to the ruling BJP’s cap and more particularly, Adityanath, who has proclaimed the two victories as a “win” for his own “good governance”. Many term it as a referendum for the much hyped “double-engine government.”

The loss of these two parliamentary constituencies becomes even more significant as it was the first time that the Samajwadi Party’s lethal combine of Muslim-Yadav votes had failed to work on its most fertile ground. While Rampur has a 60% Muslim population, it is the Musim-Yadav combine that has traditionally dominated the political turf of Azamgarh.

In Rampur, it was clearly Azam Khan’s over-confidence that brought the party to the most unexpected defeat. Azam Khan seemed pretty sure that he could ensure victory for anyone nominated by him. And that confidence came from not only his old grip over the constituency but also from the wave of sympathy that he expected for himself on account of his 27-month long incarceration after the Adityanath government slapped more than 80 criminal cases against him.

Also read: Who’s Afraid of Azam Khan? Of 87 FIRs Pending, 84 Filed Since Yogi Became UP CM

Azam fielded his close confidante Aseem Raza in the hope that he would easily sail through, but received the biggest blow when the results came out, giving a clear win to BJP’s Ghanshyam Singh Lodhi with a handsome margin of 42,200 votes.

BJP candidate Ghanshyam Singh Lodhi receives the Certificate of Election after winning the Rampur Lok Sabha by-elections, in Rampur, Sunday, June 26, 2022. Photo: PTI

Sharp polarisation and strong consolidation of Hindu votes in his favour were seen as the key reasons for the defeat of Azam’s nominee, who could not enlist even marginal non-Muslim support. The Yadav population in Rampur is quite insignificant, while the strategic selection of a candidate from the Lodhi backward community enlisted the mass support of all non-Yadav OBCs for BJP.

A visibly angry Azam Khan has blamed it all on the ruling dispensation, whom he has accused of “misusing local government machinery” to manipulate the polling process.

What was also true is that throughout the campaign, Azam was heard training his guns more at the erstwhile Rampur Nawab’s family than at the BJP. His anger towards the old feudal lord has been widely known and was also responsible for his own rise in politics, but today the Nawab’s family is a spent political force. Wasting time and energy on them is a futile exercise.

In Azamgarh, Akhilesh Yadav could not remotely imagine the defeat of his nominee and first cousin Dharmendra Yadav simply because the seat had been with the Yadav clan for quite sometime. Even in the BJP wave of 2014, it was bagged by Mulayam Singh Yadav and subsequently inherited by Akhilesh in 2019. More recently, in the UP state election of March 2022, Azamgarh was the one parliamentary constituency where all the 10 assembly segments went to the Samajwadi Party.

Apparently, behind Akhilesh’s decision to field his uncle’s son was very little consideration of factors at play.

Dharmendra Yadav, who was earlier the MP from Budaun, was considered a complete political alien in Azamgarh. It is said that Akhilesh disregarded the demand of his own local supporters to field his wife Dimple Yadav. The next choice was an old party hand, Rama Kant Yadav, a widely known and well entrenched local leader. But his ticket was dropped after he asked the party leadership to provide him with the funds to contest the polls. Finally, Akhilesh hand-picked his cousin, taking local voters’ support the Yadav clan for granted.

FILE IMAGE: Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav with his wife Dimple Yadav during a roadshow in Kannauj. Photo: PTI

What he also failed to take into account was Bahujan Samaj Party’s move of fielding a popular Muslim leader Shah Alam, better known as Guddu Jamali. It is an open secret that BSP supremo was serving BJP’s purpose of digging into SP’s Muslim vote bank. Guddu Jamali not only made it a triangular contest but also brought about a division of the Muslim vote, that eventually ensured a clear victory for the BJP candidate.

Jamali has an interesting political past. He had walked out of BSP in November 2021 and was seeking an SP ticket to contest for the Mubarakpur assembly seat in Azamgarh in March 2022. But Akhilesh Yadav did not consider him suitable enough, so Jamali switched loyalties to Asaduddin Owasi’s AIMIM, only to lose the election. Mayawati hand-picked him for the Azamgarh Lok Sabha seat as soon as the by-poll was announced. Jamali won as many as 266,000 votes, nearly 40,000 fewer than Dharmendra Yadav and 48,000 behind the winning BJP nominee.

Akhilesh, issuing tweets and making statements on social media, had been blissfully unaware of the  obvious underhand deals that were being struck between BSP and BJP.

Supporters of the SP believe Akhilesh is yet to learn the lessons of the March 2022 election defeat and has certainly failed to take the bull by the horns this time.

It will now be an uphill task for him and his party to spring back when the nation goes to the far more crucial general election in 2024.

Watch | Is Shivpal Yadav Being Used to Weaken Akhilesh Yadav?

The Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party chief’s comments on Azam Khan need to be seen in light of the bigger picture.

Shivpal Yadav, the Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party chief, recently met Azam Khan in jail and said the same words Chief Minister Adityanath had said before, that Akhilesh Yadav should have done something for Khan. This time, Shivpal also targeted his brother Mulayam Singh, saying, “Neta ji should have raised the cause of Azam Khan in the Lok Sabha,” but he didn’t.

What does this mean? And what does it indicate for politics in Uttar Pradesh?