Sakshi Maharaj, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyothi eye backward leader spot in UP BJP

NEW DELHI: Unnao MP Sakshi Maharaj may have set off a storm with his comment asking Hindu women to have four or more children, and it may appear to be a typically reactionary statement made without thinking of the consequences, but sources in the BJP said there is a method to it. Top sources in the party said that both Maharaj and Union minister Sadhvi Niranjan Jyothi have been eyeing the vacant spot of a “backward community Hindutva leader” vacated by Kalyan Singh and Uma Bharati in Uttar Pradesh. “Right now, the BJP in Uttar Pradesh is looking for not just a new chief but also faces which appeal to both the Hindutva and backward community vote banks. Niranjan Jyothi (OBC in UP and a Dalit in Delhi due to difference in backward class listing) and Sakshi Maharaj are both competing for that,” said the source.

Gorakhpur MP Yogi Adityanath, who headed the party’s campaign committee in the last set of byeelections in the state is the hard Hindutva face for the party, albeit heading the ‘Rajput Gaddi’ of the Gorakhpur math. “Despite the losses in the bye-election, the central command still thinks he has potential to be the hard Hindutva face of the party. Niranjan Jyothi and Sakshi Maharaj have to compete with him,” said a senior leader in UP BJP. The party feels that only a combination of Hindutva and development can consolidate the vote in UP in a way to beat caste combinations employed by Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati. It is an extension of the Govindacharya-led “social engineering” experiment that had yielded a rich crop of OBC leaders for the BJP, till then only known for upper caste leaders. Kalyan Singh and Uma Bharati had been products of that experiment.

Niranjan Jyothi’s fate after her ill-advised speech at an election rally in Delhi is a pointer. Not only did she keep her job as minister of state in the Narendra Modi government, but she has also got VIP security, a sure sign of political approbation. Sakshi Maharaj too hasn’t suffered overly after calling Nathuram Godse, Mahatama Gandhi’s assassin, a patriot. All injunctions on him to curb his comments seem to have fallen on deaf ears.