Everybody is fighting for a jugad

“Aapka jugad chal raha hai?” BJP president Rajnath Singh asks his responsive audience on the outskirts of the city as he concludes his speech.

“Aapka jugad chal raha hai?” BJP president Rajnath Singh asks his responsive audience on the outskirts of the city as he concludes his speech. Farmers in Western UP have named their innovative vehicle—assembled from a diesel engine and crude components—‘jugad’. An eloquent Hindi slang, ‘jugad’ implies many things but broadly it’s about putting together something functional by any means. Farmers use ‘jugad’ to transport goods and people, and at the farms its engine can be detached and used for irrigation.

Singh then goes on to trace the history of ‘jugad’. “The farmers complained to me about police harassment when I was CM and till then I had not heard about ‘jugad’. Within minutes I issued an order directing all district magistrates to allow ‘jugad’ to run,” he says. “But in the 2002 elections, you ruined my ‘jugad’. This time, do please help my ‘jugad’, vote for lotus.”

That is Singh’s parting shot. He is out to prove his worth in his home state, in the first elections after he took over as party chief.

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This is an election in which victory is all about post-election ‘jugad’. While SP, BSP and BJP are trying to be at the top of the pyramid, Congress, RLD, UDF, Samajwadi Kranti Dal, NCP and numerous other small parties and local satraps want to be kingmakers.

“No government is possible without our help,” says UPCC chief Salman Khursheed, RLD leader Ajit Singh, D P Yadav, Beni Prasad Verma and anyone and everyone on the election scene. Being small can be a boon. And many of them, including Rahul Gandhi, are fighting not this election, but the next elections which can take place before 2011.

Dr Masood, a former BSP minister and now leader of two parties, National Loktantrik Party and National Lokhind Party, claims he will be the UP CM after the next elections. “In eight months from now,” he promises. Until then, he will support “any party other than the BJP to form a government”. But why is he heading two parties? “Why ask friend, both are NLP when abbreviated,” he says, and claims his parties will win 35 seat of the 177 he has fielded candidates from.

As the fragments in UP politics are breaking down, the BSP is experimenting with new models of rainbow coalitions and the BJP is resisting it through its same old Hindutva. Most candidates of the party in the region are Muslims and only in reserved seats does the BSP have Dalit candidates. Mayawati’s pitch for Brahmin votes has shaken the BJP if Rajnath Singh’s comments are anything to go by. “Earlier she said she belonged only to bahujans. Now she says she is for all,” Singh says. And then he reminds the upper caste of Mayawati’s past. “She used to deride and humiliate you. Can you go with her for a few spoils of power?” Singh asks.

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BJP is also trying to hold on to its upper caste base by targeting Muslims, notably on cow slaughter. Small time party speakers have reportedly been campaigning on such issues, whereas Rajnath Singh’s own speech was about the dangers of reservation for Muslims and the necessity of singing ‘Vande Mataram’. “Muslims need not fear us. But we shall tell the truth even if we are called communal for doing that,” Singh signs off.