Till the Bharatiya Janata Party won the elections, it maintained a facade of a disciplined party with an aura of ideology, with the resolve to ‘Make India Great Again’. It has a leader who does not entertain factional fights and leads the party with an iron will. But as the party lost the majority in recently held Lok Sabha elections, the mask is off. Since Uttar Pradesh has shown that the BJP is vulnerable and can be defeated, now factions are revealed and power-seeking politicians with repressed ambitions are out to kill each other.

UP is the state that is politically the most volatile, and before other states can react, it gives signals about the future. This was the state that in 1977, had defeated the strong person of Indian politics, Indira Gandhi, in her own constituency of Raebareli. This state had the temerity to unseat a sitting prime minister through the judicial route. This was also the state that created a roar against electorally the most powerful prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, on the issue of Bofors. This is the state where Indira Gandhi’s grandson, trying to take on her mantle, lost from Amethi in the last elections. When Narendra Modi wanted to become the Prime Minister, he had to choose Varanasi.

UP most unexpectedly gave the BJP 73 seats along with its ally, Apna Dal, in 2014, which heralded a new era in Indian politics, the Modi Era. The same UP is now hinting that if the BJP does not course-correct, then the empire will crumble and even Modi won’t be able to save it. And Modi, with his brilliant political mind, sensed it. No wonder he looks nervous after the loss, and does not appear to know what to do. When the leader is nervous and has no clue about the future, then second- and third-rung leaders start playing games to save themselves or position themselves in the future power structure.

But the game that is being played in UP right now is not about Yogi Adityanath and Keshav Maurya, but is a sign that Modi, the invincible,........

© Free Press Journal