Does BJP know it is losing elections in UP?

The newspapers on Monday across Uttar Pradesh carried a jacket advertisement with pictures of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. The advertisement talks about the inauguration of khaad kakhana (fertiliser factory) and AIIMS in Gorakhpur on December 7.

There is nothing new about the government giving advertisements of projects which the prime minister is going to inaugurate. But it generally is published on the day the inauguration takes place. The advertisement a day before the function is rare and thus raises questions whether the spree of ribbon-cutting functions by Prime Minister Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah is an attempt to camouflage the non-performance of the Yogi Government in the last four and half years.

“Inauguration ke sabun se Modi aur Shah purana paap dhona chaahte hai (With the soap of inauguration, Modi and Shah are trying to wash away old sins),” a disgruntled BJP leader said.

Prime Minister will further inaugurate the Kashi Vishwanath corridor, the Bundelkhand Expressway, and lay the foundation of Ganga Expressway in the next couple of weeks before elections are announced in January. Previously, Modi had inaugurated Purvanchal Expressway and had launched the 2.0 of the Ujjawala Scheme. He also inaugurated a medical college in Sidharthnagar and an international airport in Kushinagar last month.

There is a belief in political circles that BJP is under tremendous pressure to tell people about its achievements. The projects, which it inaugurated in the past, were the extension of the schemes of the previous Samajwadi Party government and Akhilesh Yadav is raising this in all his public meetings.

In fact, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has not come up with any scheme of his own. He only implemented the schemes of the Union Government. This includes the construction of toilets, giving free LPG cylinders, payment of Kisan Samman Nidhi, and even the PM’s Vocal for Local scheme, which he re-christened as One District One Product (ODOP) scheme.

“This is the time for the government to go to the people with report card and as the Chief Minister has nothing to show to people, there is a spree of foundation laying and inauguration functions. Because the party knows that it is losing elections and something drastic needs to be done,” the BJP leader said on condition of anonymity.

Another leader quipped that during the present marriage season, people at the weddings in villages are discussing the failure of the BJP governments to tame rising process of petrol, vegetables and edible oil. “At many occasions people are raising blunt questions as what the party has done for them or their village and we have no answer,” a BJP working committee member said.

He claimed that he has apprised the district president about the ground reality. “We need to pull up our socks, otherwise we will lose the election,” he said.