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This is an archive article published on February 25, 2022

Ayodhya: As BJP hits caste hump, RSS lends a hand, with Ram, prasad & temple soil

Over the past fortnight, RSS top leaders have held meetings in Ayodhya, including sahsarkaryawah and BJP in-charge Arun Kumar. Prant pracharak Kaushal Kishore, based in Lucknow, has been camping here for the past week and will be here till polling day on February 27.

Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections 2022Priests and supporters shower flower petals during UP CM Yogi Adityanath's roadshow in Ayodhya on Thursday. AP

With caste equations making Ayodhya a sticky wicket for the BJP, the RSS has hit the ground for the prestige contest in the town which lies at the heart of the Sangh Parivar’s Hindutva project. Apart from invoking the ongoing construction for a Ram temple, RSS workers are handing out to voters literature on the Yogi Adityanath government’s works as well as “Ram lalla’s prasad” and pouches of “raj-kan (soil)” from Ram Janmabhoomi.

Over the past fortnight, RSS top leaders have held meetings in Ayodhya, including sahsarkaryawah and BJP in-charge Arun Kumar. Prant pracharak Kaushal Kishore, based in Lucknow, has been camping here for the past week and will be here till polling day on February 27.

RSS sources said nearly a hundred Sangh workers are holding five to 10 meetings every day, with groups of 10-15, where they talk about the BJP government’s achievements and request for votes in the name of Ram. The activities are parallel to what the BJP is doing on the ground.

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Winning UP again would be a big boost to the Sangh ahead of its centenary year to be celebrated in 2025. Months back it had appointed in-charge for each Assembly segment in UP, with pracharaks, former pracharaks and cadre given the task of ensuring voters get to booths on polling day, and early. A former pracharak in Lucknow said, “If they come late, many change their mind.”

The hope is that not only will the RSS and Ram temple push help overcome the anger among some against the BJP, but also take it over the caste hump. While the BJP is likely to get the Bania, Thakur and Brahmin votes, and is counting on Dalits backing it for its schemes, the party has a strong challenger in the SP’s Pawan Pandey, also a Brahmin and well-liked in the area.

All the five Assembly segments in the Ayodhya Lok Sabha constituency – Ayodhya, Bikapur, Sohawal, Milkipur and Gosaiganj – were won by the BJP in 2017 amidst a BJP wave. In the Ayodhya seat, the BJP’s Ved Prakash Gupta had won by 50,440 votes against his nearest rival Tej Narain Pandey of the Samajwadi Party. Both are again in the fray. However, at the time, the BSP’s Md Bazmi Siddeque and another candidate, Banshilal Yadav, had split the Opposition vote.

Among the 3.79 lakh total voters in the Ayodhya Assembly segment, Brahmins, Muslims and SCs number around 45,000 each; Vaishyas 40,000; and Yadavs and Chauhans 35,000 each; apart from a sizeable Kurmi and Nishad strength.

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The VHP, which has also been pitching in, says they want to ensure that “those who had made donations at the feet of Ram Lalla, of whom crores have not had ‘darshan’ till now, should get the prasad”. The prasad is being distributed with the help of the Sri Ram Janmabhomi Teerth Kshetra Trust. The VHP also carried out a ‘sant yatra’ in the constituency of Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, and is planning another in Adityanath’s constituency of Gorakhpur.

RSS sources said one of the frequent complaints they are hearing about BJP MLAs is their inaccessibility, and that they are “controlled by bureaucrats”. A pracharak working in Assembly constituencies in eastern UP said another common complaint was the delayed recruitment for government jobs.

The RSS has been promising to take care of their concerns as well as work out a proper mechanism against this during its Pratinidhi Sabha on March 11-13 at Ahmedabad. Among those called in for help is Anupam Jaiswal, who was a vibhag pracharak in Ayodhya earlier.

A pracharak welcomed RSS leader Arun Kumar’s visit to UP recently, accompanied by Union minister and BJP UP in-charge Dharmendra Pradhan, where a patient hearing was given to them over meetings lasting nearly five hours. However, he said: “This exercise should have been done long back”.

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The division among voters is apparent as one travels from Brahmin-dominated village Malikpur on Ayodhya’s outskirts to Dabha Semari nearby. In Malikpur, a young farmer, Ajay Tewari, says: “Our whole village is with Pandeyji. We don’t have any problem with Yogiji or the BJP, but the MLA is inaccessible.” In Dabha Semari, Shivam Tewari, who runs a Common Service Centre that provides facilities in rural areas for the government’s e-services, is, however, a BJP voter. “Like me, there are many beneficiaries of the PM Awas Yojana in my village.”

Brajesh Rawat, who belongs to a Dalit-majority village and runs a coaching centre in Ayodhya, says “hardly anyone in my village will vote for the BJP”. “People are angry due to unemployment, inflation, stray cattle.”

At a private hostel in Ayodhya where students stay while preparing for competitive examinations, Dharmendra Patel, Rohit Nishad, Vipin Chandra Pal and Ashvani Yadav say their families voted for the BJP in 2017 and 2019, but not now. “The BJP is seeking votes in the name of Ram and killing reservation (referring to a reservation scandal in teacher recruitment in the state).”

BJP sitting MLA Gupta, who has contested from Ayodhya before on SP and BSP tickets, said the party has brought “historic changes” to Ayodhya and all sections are benefiting from the same. “I am fighting to increase my margin of win.”

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SP candidate Pandey said that the BJP has only duped people in the name of development. “Local businessmen are being cheated and Gujarati businessmen being given contracts. Farmers’ land is being taken by force and false cases being registered.”

BJP and RSS sources admitted the situation was “tight”. “Victory or loss will be by only a few thousand.”

Shyamlal Yadav is one of the pioneers of the effective use of RTI for investigative reporting. He is a member of the Investigative Team. His reporting on polluted rivers, foreign travel of public servants, MPs appointing relatives as assistants, fake journals, LIC’s lapsed policies, Honorary doctorates conferred to politicians and officials, Bank officials putting their own money into Jan Dhan accounts and more has made a huge impact. He is member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). He has been part of global investigations like Paradise Papers, Fincen Files, Pandora Papers, Uber Files and Hidden Treasures. After his investigation in March 2023 the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York returned 16 antiquities to India. Besides investigative work, he keeps writing on social and political issues. ... Read More

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