By Sushil Kutty
February 5, when Delhi votes to elect a new assembly, a factor that will have a say, but has been pushed to the back-burner, will be ‘Batenge toh katenge’, just like it had counted in the Haryana and Maharashtra assembly elections. This, even after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his clique of BJP leaders and media proxies, which includes almost every BJP underling of the Prime Minister, went out of their way to play down Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s winning streak in Haryana, Jammu & Kashmir and Maharashtra with ‘Batenge toh katenge.’
Ask BJP grassroots level workers and the impression one gets is that of Yogi touching new heights with the Mahakumbh but then stampeded and robbed of Mahakumbh glory. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has enemies at unlikely places; search and you’ll find them.
But the Yogi continues to consolidate Hindu votes behind him. The Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister’s rallies in Delhi had drawn a huge response, quite plainly seen to be believed. This Yogi-effect will have its say in Uttar Pradesh’s Milkipur, too, where a bypoll is scheduled for February 5.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s Delhi rallies rattled the AAP leadership. The Mahakumbh stampede and the diatribe against the all-conquering Yogi followed. This monk was getting too big for his wooden footwear. Just like in Haryana, and in Maharashtra, ‘Batenge toh katenge’ has become a factor in Delhi, too.
The Congress, AAP, and the AIMIM, have together narrowed the voting to a Hindu-Muslim polarization. In their bid to corner the Muslim vote, each of these parties have willy-nilly become instruments of consolidation of the floating Hindu vote.
The Muslim-dominated seats are split between AAP and the Congress with the AIMIM playing the “vote-katuwa” role in the couple of seats where Asaduddin Owaisi has pitched Muslim candidates. And Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Rahul Gandhi stepped outdoors only to campaign in Muslim-dominated assembly constituencies. Has this hit AAP’s chances in Muslim hotbeds and benefited the BJP?
There are those who say that the Congress is deliberately playing this game of undercutting the AAP, others insist the surprise package this time will be the Congress and that the Congress showing in Delhi would stun! But will the Muslim voter waste his vote because Rahul Gandhi runs a ‘Mohabbat ki Dukaan’ or because Priyanka Gandhi Vadra totes a tote-bag with ‘Palestine’ stamped on it?
The Muslim vote is reserved for the AAP in these times of adversity. In constituencies like Matia Mahal in Old Delhi, the Congress-AAP divide is clearly demarcated even though the AAP’s Amanatullah Khan, who is repeat candidate from Okhla, is the most hated candidate even among AAP voters.
So, much to the disgust of “aam Muslims”, the prospects of BJP candidates have brightened and whatever “kasar” was left would be filled by Hindutva sentiments running rife across the Hindi belt of which Delhi is very much a part. To get an idea, watch content created by YouTubers; mainstream media looks only through the very narrow prism of “Modi hai toh Mumkin hai.”
Meantime, there has been a consolidation of Hindu votes along ‘Batenge toh katenge’ lines. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Ek hai toh safe hain’ is deception just like the man is! Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath took ‘Batenge toh katenge’ to Haryana, to Jammu & Kashmir and to Maharashtra and everywhere the tide turned in the BJP’s favour.
The ‘Batenge toh katenge’ undertow in Delhi, too, is very strong, pulling the Delhi Hindu voter along as February 8 will show. The undercurrent will leave its effect on the voting on February 5. With the BJP matching AAP and Congress freebies with a BJP freebie of equal impact, the Hindu vote will not deviate, partly because there is no saying which way AAP will turn in a post-assembly elections scenario.
After all, all said and done, Arvind Kejriwal and Rahul Gandhi are two sides of the same coin and both are INDI-Alliance. So, while AAP faces a challenge from the BJP, its dependence on the Muslim vote hasn’t missed the Hindu voter.
The problem for the AAP is it could not keep up the sham of “soft Hindutva” and risk alienating the Muslim vote even as the Congress threatened to run away with the Muslim vote. This, despite Muslims loudly protesting that they will ditch Kejriwal for Rahul.
The AAP’s Muslim candidates in Matia Mahal, Ballimaran, Okhla, Seelampur and Mustafabad are all fighting with their backs to the wall unlike in 2020 when all five constituencies went to the Aam Aadmi Party. Suffice to say that Arvind Kejriwal is beset with trouble at every turn he takes.
There is talk that the Dalit and “jhuggi-jhopdi voters” back AAP and will not dump Arvind Kejriwal in this hour of need. True, the slum-clusters of Delhi had voted for AAP in the assembly elections of 2015 and 2020, but tap the grassroots and the grass will part to reveal a distinct bias growing in the BJP’s favour because the Modi government has the power to evict and clear the slums once and for all.
There is also this gathering promise that what the BJP, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in particular, promises is kept without fail, whether it is the Rs 6000 for ‘kisans’ or the ‘n’ number of welfare schemes targeting all manner of voters, from women to youth to senior citizens and sundry other benefactors.
The only voter who is trusted like the fox by the BJP is the Muslim even though Prime Minister Modi lives in the dream that there will come a day when the Muslim will take mercy on his unfailing loyalty to ‘Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas’ and vote for the BJP. Prime Minister Modi is a victim of his own follies, one of which is his abiding belief in myths.
This is where Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath fills in the gap. But for the Yogi, the BJP wouldn’t have pocketed Haryana nor annexed Maharashtra. Whatever little was there to cheer in the J&K elections was also due to Yogi-power and Delhi will not be bereft of the Yogi’s disturbing influence on the Hindu voter.
And helping the Yogi are not Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, but Opposition leaders like Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi and Salman Khurshid. Also Samajwadi Party stalwarts like party president Akhilesh Yadav, all whom went out of their way to ridicule Hinduism and belittle Hindutva.
Especially at this time of the Mahakumbh, when Hindutva sentiments are at their peak. Kharge did the greatest damage when he asked if “dubki” in the ‘Sangam’ was a panacea for hunger and poverty? Samajwadi Party’s Rajya Sabha MP, “Mrs Jaya Bachchan”, alleged that “1000s were killed in the Mahakumbh stampede” and that their “bodies dumped in the Sangam” without a shred of evidence to prove her overarching and damning claim.
Why haven’t the bloated bodies risen to view? Suffice to say, Amitabh Bachchan lives dangerously! The more Mahakumbh was targeted, the more Yogi gained followers among the Hindus. Bottom-line: There is an ‘X-factor’ at play in the Delhi and Milkipur elections as it was in the Maharashtra and Haryana assembly elections. Despite the Mahakumbh stampede and the deaths, and the ‘missing’, both Delhi and Milkipur will refuse to stampede, pivot! (IPA Service)
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