From Pradeep Kapoor
LUCKNOW: Finding it very tough to retain the 73 seats it won with help of allies, BJP is playing aggressive ‘kamandal’ and Mandal cards for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
CM Yogi Adityanath, who is considered to be the face of aggressive hindutva, has once again raised the issue of Ram Temple at Ayodhya. Significantly, the Yogi government changed the name of district headquarters Faizabad to Ayodhya.
For the second year Ayodhya witnessed a unique Deepawali festival when the holy city was lit with lakhs of clay diya creating a world record. If this was not enough, much hype was created over the discovery of historic connection of Ayodhya princes to ancient Korea and the wife of South Korean President attended the celebrations in Ayodhya in the presence Governor Ram Naik and the chief minister along with his entire cabinet and high officials.
During his visit to Ayodhya Yogi Adityanath announced that the airport there would be named after Lord Ram and a hospital would be named after Raja Dashrath. He also announced a number of development schemes worth several hundreds of crores of rupees.
In order to win over and mobilise support of Hindu community, Adityanath made a direct approach to the Supreme Court requesting the court to announce the verdict on title suit for Janambhumi in Ayodhya without delay.
While the Yogi Adityanath government is talking about honouring the Supreme Court verdict, it is also seeking support from the sadhus and other dharmacharya through VHP and organisations in favour of building up pressure for the construction of the temple.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has also been entrusted with the task of talking to all the parties involved in the litigation relating to the title deed of Ram Janambhumi and Babri Masjid land to explore the possibility of reaching an out of court settlement.
Yogi Adityanath has also changed the name of Allahabad to Prayag and now there is demand for changing the names of Agra, Meerut and Muzaffarnagar.
BJP, RSS and VHP are mobilising a massive protest of sants from Ayodhya and other places to Delhi sometimes next month. The objective is to tell the people of country that Modi and Yogi are serious about the construction of Ram temple at Ayodhya.
Alongside the kamandal politics, the Yogi government is also playing Mandal politics. The chief minister and his ministers with the help of senior office-bearers of the ruling party are organising meetings of different castes and assuring them that their grievances are being addressed.
There have been several such caste related meetings organised by ministers belonging to the same caste and attended by the CM, deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya, party president Dr Mahendra Nath Pande and high profile general secretary Sunil Bansal. There have been meetings between Yogi Adityanath and his ministers on one hand and the senior office-bearers of RSS for better coordination in view of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
In view of the possible alliance between Samajwadi Party and BSP, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah have visited UP several times during last two months and announced several welfare schemes to win over the support of people.
The post Yogi Playing ‘Kamandanl’ And ‘Mandal’ Cards appeared first on Newspack by India Press Agency.
