Yogi Adityanath, a firebrand BJP leader who runs Uttar Pradesh, seeks reflection
Voters arrive to cast their ballot at a polling station in Vrindavan on February 10, 2022 during the first phase of Uttar Pradesh state assembly elections. (Photo: AFP)
India’s most populous state went to the polls Thursday in a key popularity test for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government.
Victory in the northern state of over 200 million people, and strong performances in four other state polls in the coming weeks, would boost Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) party ahead of 2024 national elections when he will likely seek a third term.
“We will win all five (states)… They (the people of Uttar Pradesh) will accept us in 2022 after seeing our work,” Modi, 71, said in an interview with ANI news agency on the eve of the election.
Uttar Pradesh, home to more people than Brazil, is run by Yogi Adityanath, a firebrand monk from the BJP who has implemented a string of policies seen by critics as anti-Muslim.
‘Jobs lost’
The BJP’s main rival is the Samajwadi (Socialist) Party, led by Akhilesh Yadav who has been seeking to tap into discontent over job losses and rising prices.
The state government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic has also been widely criticised, with hundreds of bodies floating in the Ganges or buried in its banks last year.
“The government should address what happened during Covid (in) the past two years. Many people have been affected and suffered losses no doubt,” voter Amit Pratap Singh, 48, told AFP.
“People’s businesses have been impacted. Jobs have been lost. So the government should plan to address it.”
Keen to make up lost ground, the BJP has promised a job for at least one member of each family and free electricity for farmers — a key voting bloc — if it retains power.