By Nora Chopra
Varun Gandhi becoming important to BJP leadership once again
Please do not underestimate Varun Gandhi. Varun Gandhi is no Rahul Gandhi He is a 34-year old upcoming young man who over the years, has built a support base for himself. This two time MP has a huge fan following that is called Varun Gandhi youth brigade. This youth brigade comprises of at least four to five thousand young boys in every district of UP going to a total of nearly seven lakh members who are keen to see Varun as the chief minister of UP. His power was on display when Amit Shah dropped him from his team sending all his force into a frenzy demanding his rehabilitation and declaring him as the CM candidate. Taking these threats lightly, BJP President did not even give it a thought till the party that had gloated over Shah’s performance during the Lok Sabha results, had to actually rethink about his capabilities in the by polls where the BJP lost 8 out of 11 sitting seats in Uttar Pradesh. Sunil Bansal the organising secretary of BJP UP sent a report to Amit Shah that one of the reasons for the party’s dismal performance was Varun Gandhi’s removal from the party’s general secretary post. Seven out of eight candidates who lost in the by polls are supposed to have said that they lost because Varun’s supporters did not support them. Shah known to be a great strategist, was compelled to call up Varun and tell him that they need to sit down and talk.
Rajnath worked against Shah in Uttar Pradesh by polls
Guess who was behind the rapprochement between Mulayam Singh Yadav and Amar Singh. It was no other than Narendra Modi’s unhappy home minister Rajnath Singh. Singh a Rajput ensured that the Rajput votes got polarised behind Mulayam in the by polls to ensure SP victory over Amit Shah’s BJP. Amar Singh is said to have campaigned with Netaji and Rajnath wanted to prove that without him Shah cannot win an election in Uttar Pradesh.
Amit Shah’s fate linked to outcome of assembly elections
It is testing time for BJP President Amit Shah who is already under the scanner after the dismal results of the by polls in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat. The results and the post election developments of Maharashtra and Haryana would decide the fate of Amit Shah. Already tension is building within the NDA. If Shah’s decision to go alone in Haryana proves to be incorrect and the party which is facing multi cornered contest loses in Haryana, it might lead to his downfall. For the first time, the BJP will have no allies. Shah has severed ties with Kuldip Bishnoi just because of his proximity to Sushma Swaraj. He is facing the Jat leadership of both Bhupinder Singh Hooda as well as OM Prakash Chautala. The BJP does not have a base among the Jats who are the deciding factor in the election in Haryana. And with Chautala in prison, the two BJP allies the Punjab CM Prakash Singh Badal and the Andhra Pradesh CM Chandrababu Naidu will be campaigning against the BJP in the state. There is a substantial strength of Punjabis who will vote for Chautala because of Badal or for Hooda because of Amarinder Singh. The non-Jat votes would be split among the BJP, HVP and Vinod Sharma’s party. It is to be seen how Shah succeeds in the absence of a Modi wave. Again in Maharashtra the RSS saved the alliance with the Shiv Sena but now Shah’s skill management will prove who walks off with the chief minister’s post. If the BJP fails to get its own CM, that could be the beginning of the end of Shah.
Congress does well in by polls without Rahul’s campaign
Congress leadership needs to be happy. It is on its way to recovery. After Uttarakhand and Bihar bye-elections, they have performed extremely well in Rajasthan and even in Modi and Shah’s Gujarat. But in Uttar Pradesh the Party has failed once again and the blame is on the AICC general secretary in charge of UP Madhusudan Mistry. The Congress not only lost in all eleven seats but has performed miserably under the super guidance of Mistry. The party candidates lost their deposits in ten out of eleven seats. Congress did not even come second anywhere. The only place the Congress saved its deposit is Charkhari assembly seat in Hamirpur. Mistry is blamed for his ignorance about the dynamics of UP politics and his selection of candidates who had no connect with the people on the ground. As for Rajasthan where the Congress had lost all 25 seats in Lok Sabha elections, it managed to get three out of four seats in the by polls and in Modi’s Gujarat where the party was zero in the Lok Sabha election it managed to make a dent in the BJP vote bank. The party got three out of the nine seats vacated by the BJP MLAs. The joke going on in Congress circles is that in all the states where the party has managed to recover some ground Rahul Gandhi has not campaigned in the elections.
BJP seniors blame Amit Shah for UP bypoll results
Amit Shah who was the hero of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections just four months ago, is the fall guy today in the BJP. Everyone In the BJP is blaming Shah for the disastrous results of the just concluded by polls in Uttar Pradesh where the party had bagged 70 plus seats out of 80 seats in the recent Lok Sabha elections The BJP has got just three out the 11 that went to polls in the by elections. The remaining seats have gone to Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party. All the eleven seats that went to polls were BJP seats vacated by those who became MPs. Despite unleashing the communal agenda of love jihad, it not only failed to unite all castes under the banner of Hindu but on the contrary succeeded in uniting the Muslims behind Mulayam. The Muslims this time did not even waste a single vote either on the Congress or any other independent. Despite the absence of Mayawati in the by polls, Shah could not even take the dalits along. All the eight MPs who lost their seats are extremely upset as they were not consulted at the time of giving the tickets. Shah did not even take Rajnath Singh into confidence and no leader was allowed to go to campaign for the party. Leaders from Rajasthan and Gujarat Narendra Modi’s home state are also narrating the same stories. (IPA)