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The politics of India has changed, traditional politics will no longer work in India. Within India, the politics of Kamandal-Mandal which started 30 years ago has also come to an end. In India, the tendency of regional forces to come to power by taking care of other castes has disappeared and perhaps such a mandate has never come before in the electoral history of India, when the politics that was being played continuously for the last 30 years on the political chessboard of Uttar Pradesh also changed and the issues which kept on rising in the country’s politics, which made this country to think and ponder on those issues that affected nationally, were sidelined by the gravity of a state poll and the script was rewritten.
This is a mandate that has taught this country many lessons, this is a mandate that has put such a challenge in front of those politicians that if their struggle is limited to elections only or is limited to winning elections, then it has to be changed. Whatever definitions used to be based on different alliances, caste equations, or even communal polarization, everything has disappeared from this mandate. And perhaps this is a period for the BJP, during which the blame cannot be placed on the fact that due to communal polarization, the people got divided, but the people were not divided, the people weren’t divided between Hindu and Muslim, and to add on, behind the leaders of a specific caste who portray themselves as the sole flagbearers of that particular caste, voters decided otherwise and sent the biggest shockwave to the political existence of such leaders and their caste-based alliances. And the biggest model among all this, Yogi model, whether it is the height and stature of Mulayam Singh Yadav in Uttar Pradesh or the height of Mayawati or Akhilesh Yadav or the politics of Kanshi Ram, CM Yogi Adityanath’s model has ruined it all.
But now Uttar Pradesh has to look ahead, and hereafter which political party will be able to flourish on the political land of Uttar Pradesh is also a question in itself. This is not an immediate circumstance that you try to see and understand these outcomes under the garb of its five years tenure, in fact it is a mandate affecting the politics of India; and the public which understands the trick, the way it catches and chooses a party over other, it was evident that there were far distances by the leaders from the connect in this election. And therefore this question becomes vital that “what does the public really want” and what tactics can leaders find to raise those issues which are heightened within the public adjacent to leaders’ political portfolios? Crowds will always be seen on the streets, it’ll be seen with every political party because the army of unemployed is so humongous in Uttar Pradesh that many countries of Europe can be included in it. But beating anti-incumbency, BJP single handedly captured 255 seats across UP so is it to be believed that the Yogi model will shine on the national horizon for India in the coming times? So is it to be believed that there is PM Modi in the country and CM Yogi in Uttar Pradesh and this cocktail will not allow any other political party to flourish anymore? Is the democracy of India, encompassing multi-party politics and the mandate within it, has started giving challenges to all the political parties and leaders in this country? Or within this country, now a new recognition is happening and whatever weapons are being adopted with the creation of recognition, they are weapons of capital, they are weapons of planning, they are weapons of propaganda, they are weapons of number game and how can these weapons be conquered by applying electoral coating to ideological situations.
There was no wave of change within Uttar Pradesh because something new was needed around the change. In UP, all season leader like Swami Prasad Maurya lost the election, BJP almost sweeped the Western belt of UP which is the bastion of farmers inspite of huge farmers’ protest, BJP won all eight constituencies of Lakhimpur Kheri where BJP’s Union Minister Ajay Mishra’s son Ashish Mishra was arrested as main accused in the killing of four farmers and a journalist, but voters didn’t get angry. So, should it be accepted now that politics matters not issues, or politicians matter not politics, or not even a politician but his face and through his face, the hopes and aspirations which get enlightened matters? The answer is lucid in the mandate and the road to 2024 will now be traversing through the political corridors of Lucknow.
These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint.
Source: The Print
