- 3 months ago
Ahead of the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections next year, BJP Uttar Pradesh chief Pankaj Chaudhary's interview with India Today has sparked speculation over whether the saffron party will once again project Yogi Adityanath as its CM face.
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00:05all right with all the politics going on over the delimitation bill that could come up once again
00:11in the monsoon session the dmk has only kept the speculation on while you have the congress that
00:18said they are going to vote against the bill and they're in talks with the dmk the dmk has now
00:23come out and said that they will take a stand on the delimitation bill when the bill is introduced
00:29so keeping everyone in suspended animation some would read a softening of stand because earlier
00:35on dmk was very clear in the last time the bill was introduced that they would oppose the bill the
00:42dmk has postponed any decision on the delimitation issue suggesting they will only take a call once
00:48the bill is introduced and that is what the dmk says senior dmk mp says party president called a
00:56meeting with all mps and it was decided to take a call on delimitation when the bill is introduced so
01:03keeping up the political suspended animation going uh refusing to take a stand some would read it as
01:11a possible softening of stand of the dmk the dmk has a sizable chunk of mps 22 in all and
01:19having 22 of
01:20those nps on the side of the nda could boost the chances of the government to reach that proverbial
01:26to third majority the magic figure 260 uh 360 of 540 where the looks of her strength is joining me
01:35right now is my colleague anaga for more anaga what more can you add in fact pretty there was a
01:42virtual meeting that was held today because the former state minister staron is in london at the
01:46moment so therefore there was a virtual meeting that was held uh between the party president and
01:51all of the dmk members of parliament about their stance uh with regards to congress their stance with
01:56regards to you know with regards to delimitation and the dmk has decided to cross the bridge when
02:02it comes so therefore when the bill is introduced is when they are likely to uh take on uh you
02:08know a
02:08proper stance on this matter but when it comes to their stance on congress they are very clear there
02:13many times before when congress has tried to do dmk trying to make sure that they all put up
02:18a very very strong anti-djp for us in opposition front but the dmk is very clear because the rules
02:24of betrayal that they started when congress had joined hands with tvk it's still fresh therefore
02:29the dmk says that we'll decide on bills on case by case basis and even in the parliament they've
02:35sought separate seats from congress so therefore one of the delimitation bill is introduced is when
02:40the dmk will take an open and a public stance on this matter until then we can probably perceive
02:47that the dmk has softened the stance on dmk all right so the dmk is going to keep everyone guessing
02:53but like ananda also pointed out this could very well be viewed and interpreted as a softening of
02:58stand because the dmk when the bill was put to vote on the april 17th this year and was defeated
03:04the
03:04first time around and dug in its heels and had called the bill anti-south india especially anti-tamir
03:11nadu so clearly there has been a change of stance of the dmk the congress still believes and hopes
03:18that the dmk will vote in favor of rejecting the bill which is against the bill all right let's quickly
03:26shift focus now to a story that we are tracking very closely with very keen political interest well
03:32this uh was something that was said on our sister concern ajitak's platform yesterday an india today
03:40interview with bjp's up chief pankaj jodhari has now triggered speculations over whether the bjp
03:48will project yogi adityanath as its chief ministerial face for the 2027 assembly polls the remarks come
03:56amidst bjp's review of its 2024 look sabha set back in up and weeks after akhilesh yadav claimed there
04:04was a move to replace yogi is there a leadership rethink or is this just political speculation
04:10political posturing here's more
04:23five states are heading to the polls next year election rhetoric is set to intensify campaign
04:30trades will hit up and political equations will be tested but even before the election battle starts
04:37the biggest political buzzes coming from uttapradesh will the bjp once again project yogi adityanath as
04:44its cm face for 2027 the speculation gathered pace after bjp uttapradesh chief pankaj jodhari in an
04:52interview with india today stopped short of declaring yogi adityanath as the party's cm face
04:58yehaan peer yogi adityanath dho baar se mukhi manthri hai ya yogi adityanath hi chi chahra hai bjp ke
05:33this time in India.
05:35The timing is significant. The BGP has ruled Uttar Pradesh for nearly a decade, with Yogi Adityanath serving two consecutive
05:43terms since 2017. During this period, the party has built its campaign around law and order, welfare delivery, infrastructure and
05:53Hindutva.
05:54Any uncertainty over the leadership is bound to trigger political speculation.
06:00The buzz also comes just weeks after Samajwadi Party chief Akhilash Yadav claimed that the BGP was plotting to replace
06:07chief ministers in several states.
06:25The backdrop is also the BGP's disappointing performance in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh.
06:32The BGP-led NDA managed to win only 36 of the state's 80 seats, despite being in power at both
06:41the centre and in the state.
06:43Several BGP leaders later alleged Bhitar Ghat or internal sabotage, with losing candidates accusing party colleagues of working against them.
06:54Factionalism, rebellion and ticket resentment also surfaced post-pose.
06:59The party subsequently launched an internal review to understand the reasons behind the setback.
07:07For now, there is no official announcement and the BGP insists leadership decisions are taken collectively.
07:15But in Indian politics, Uttar Pradesh has long been seen as the road to Delhi.
07:20Will the BGP stick with the face that has led its government in Uttar Pradesh for a decade or spring
07:26a surprise in 2027?
07:28For now, it remains speculation.
07:31The answer will unfold in the months ahead.
07:34Bureau Report, India Today.
07:38Alright, let's bring in our four political analysts for a quick chat on what can be expected, what is really
07:44brewing and what is being speculated.
07:45Professor Badri Narayan, columnist and political analyst, joins us.
07:49Rajat Sethi, political analyst, Swati Chaturvedi, senior journalist, author, Sharad Pradhan, senior journalist.
07:55Let's begin with Rajat Sethi.
07:56Rajat Sethi, you know, some would suggest that if you have a really strong chief minister, and even the BGP,
08:02which has been at times against the grain of how the party functions,
08:07be it already making it very clear, you've had the Home Minister, Ramit Shah, who's made it very clear,
08:11that in 2029, the prime ministerial candidate for the BGP is going to be Prime Minister Modi.
08:17In Assam, it was pretty much taken for guarantee that it was Himanta Biswasarma on whose name the election was
08:25being fought.
08:26Why fall short of naming Yogi Adityanath as your face when he's been, as per the BGP itself, a very
08:33able and a very popular chief minister?
08:37Hi, good evening, Preeti ji and to all the fellow panelists.
08:41I think what stops is the constitution of the BGP.
08:44I don't think any leader, at whatever rank they are, this is the only formal reply you can expect.
08:50This is simple party's structure, party's core way of functioning, and the mandate that is given to a person that
09:00you were interviewing,
09:01who happens to be the state president.
09:03Any more comment beyond this is far above his pay grade, it's far above his mandate.
09:07So I think what he said, I don't know why you are seeing politics and you are conducting a show
09:12on this,
09:13there are much more important issues to discuss.
09:14This was as bureaucratic a response as you could have anticipated, and I don't see any more politics into it.
09:21Though there is more motives around actually trying to shed this statement into tiny bits and pieces
09:27and try and derive a political message out of it, which I don't see any.
09:32Well, you know, Rajat, the reason we are conducting this show is as much as the reason you've chosen to
09:36attend it.
09:36We didn't quite coerce you into being here of your own volition to discuss the topic.
09:41You've come here to dispel. In fact, my question to your guest coordinator was exactly this.
09:45Why is this even a news?
09:46But all right, so you could say that you've come here to dispel what is just speculation.
09:51But when you say this is the constitution of the BJP, then you already have the prime minister
09:57who's been touted as being the prime ministerial face in 2029.
10:00It's come from no one else but the home minister.
10:02I understand your pay grade comment.
10:03Because, yes, maybe it is way above the pay grade of the BJP state president to confirm Yogi Adityanath's name.
10:10Maybe that's, you know, because if you look at it, Rajat, it happened with Himanta Biswasarma.
10:14It was pretty much accepted and never denied that he was going to lead the charge in the state of
10:19Assam.
10:20It happened on our stage.
10:21Okay, maybe we'll pull that reaction out.
10:23We were, a similar program we were conducting in Assam and it happened there.
10:26But nonetheless, I want to bring in Swati Chaturvedi.
10:30Swati Chaturvedi, there's a point that Rajat makes that, you know, it wasn't,
10:34it's way above the pay grade of the national, of the president of the BJP of Uttar Pradesh.
10:39And he gave what is basically the standard protocol, SOP of any leader of the BJP when a question like
10:47this is posed.
10:50Preeti, I'm astonished that for the, probably the first time in my life, I completely agree with Rajat Sethi.
10:55Because, yes, it is way above Pankaj Chaturvedi's pay grade to decide, you know,
11:01whether Yogi Adityanath is going to be the face of the BJP or not.
11:04But when I disagree with him, there's a very pertinent question.
11:07Because we have to remember that Yogi Adityanath is who he generous.
11:11He is not part of the RSS.
11:12He is not like a politician that India has ever seen or even the BJP has ever seen.
11:17You know, he is a man who marches to the tune of his own drama.
11:21A lot of the BJP does not want Yogi Adityanath to be the chief ministerial face again, which Rajat Sethi
11:27is skirting over.
11:28But what I don't think Yogi Adityanath, who thinks he is currently the Hindu Hriday Samrat, is quite reconciled to
11:37not being the face.
11:38And as far as Yogi is concerned, you know, he will do his damnedest to be the face.
11:43And we are going to see very, very interesting fireworks leading up to the elections of the most critical and
11:49the most political state that we have in India.
11:52All right. Let me bring in Professor Badri Narayan, columnist and political analyst.
11:57Professor Badri Narayan, when you see somebody like a Yogi Adityanath, some would call him a very able and a
12:03very popular chief minister,
12:05where Uttar Pradesh is concerned.
12:08When you leave a question open-ended at a time where you have your principal opposition, just a week ago,
12:14questioned the same and said that there is a plan of the BJP to change the UP chief minister.
12:22How do you read the politics in all of this?
12:25See, actually, Yogi Adityanath matters for UP politics.
12:32Whether he will be, he is going to be face or not, but he will be very central in the
12:38UP election campaign in any way, first in the sphere.
12:43So, no UP politics is possible without his campaign in this election, or his presence, very important presence in this
12:53election.
12:53Secondly, about the chief minister face, what Kamchat Choudhury has said, it's an answer of a president of a party.
13:05And a president of the party can't say different than this.
13:08Because he can't say that we are going to announce the election face for this election.
13:14He will only say that after election, they will decide who will be the chief minister.
13:19And, you know, BJP is known for this.
13:23BJP never declared face of CM in any election.
13:26And they take decision after that.
13:29But they use all their resources, the political resources for getting election win, to win the election.
13:39And, you know, Yogi Adityanath is a very popular, not only in today's entire country.
13:45And he is a one-way, very, very, he gives a kind of big support to the election campaign of
13:53BJP in any state.
13:55So, BJP, Yogi Adityanath will be central.
13:58But whether he is going to be CM face or not, it's a question.
14:03But, you know, BJP never announce CM face in any election.
14:08You must have no.
14:09Same.
14:09So, the Pinker Chaudhary question.
14:16Mr. Professor Narayan, I think we've lost you.
14:19We're going to try and reestablish that signal with you.
14:21I'm going to bring in Sharad Pradhan.
14:22Sharad Pradhan.
14:24Yeah.
14:24You know, especially those who extensively report on Yogi Adityanath from Uttar Pradesh are reading a lot more into this.
14:33On what?
14:34And it's plausible.
14:35And, you know, what Rajat said could be very well true.
14:38Like, what would a state president say when posed with a question like this?
14:42Because there is always a standard operating procedure, SOP, for most responses that come on this question,
14:47particularly before a state goes into election.
14:51Right.
14:51Well, considering that why Pankaj Chaudhary talked in this manner, he was contradicting what Nitin Nabeen had said in an
15:01interview about a month and a half earlier, sometime in April.
15:06Nitin Nabeen said very clearly that none other than Yogi Adityanath would be the chief ministerial face.
15:13And now Pankaj Chaudhary trying to, you know, not say in as many words, rather he has aroused this suspicion
15:21that BJP, there's something happening within the, behind the curtains.
15:26And everybody's been, it's been a loud talk everywhere within the BJP circles also that Yogi Adityanath doesn't get along
15:33with either Amit Shah or Mr. Modi.
15:37So, there has been, this speculation has been around for quite some time, but to say that he is popular,
15:44he is popular with the people, all right, with the voters, but he is not popular within the BJP.
15:49And then that is, with the public, he is popular simply because of his anti-Muslim stance, which gives him
15:56a lot of his image, his personality as a Muslim hater.
16:02But, you know, Mr. Pradhan, that's not entirely true, because yes, there could be, because, you know, partly with what
16:09you say, but there is a lot of support for Yogi Adityanath for being a law enabler.
16:15And law and order is something which a lot of people support Yogi Adityanath for, sir.
16:20It just, you know, we can't get caught and have such simplistic explanations for popularity of a particular leader.
16:27Right. I'll tell you why, Preeti. You know, he is, Yogi Adityanath hatched off to him for achieving this through
16:35his publicity.
16:36Do you have any idea of the kind of money that is spent on his publicity from the budget?
16:40It's 2,000 crores.
16:42So, you can imagine five, more than five crores a day is spent on his publicity.
16:46And a lot of his claims on law and order are contradicted by none other than the national kind.
16:52I don't want to introduce Sharad Pradhan, but like, you know, I'm just, for someone who's extensively reported in Uttar
16:57Pradesh, I can actually say, I will let you complete, sir.
17:00But I just want to give you an example.
17:02You know, for someone who's extensively reported in Uttar Pradesh, ground reality seems to suggest that there are a lot
17:08of people and a lot of young women who actually see him as someone who has changed the law and
17:13order situation of UP.
17:14And I will allow you to complete, sir. No one's stopping you. Make your point.
17:17What I'm saying is that whatever Yogi Adityanath has been claiming, a lot of that is contradicted by the National
17:23Crime Records Bureau, NCRB.
17:25The data is contradicted, his data is contradicted by that.
17:28For instance, rapes in UP and the last NCRB report of 2023-24 says that there is a rape in
17:38UP every nine hours.
17:41Yes, it is way better than Akhlesha's time when it was six, every six hours.
17:45And then you talk about having the best women's security on this earth, which is what Yogi Adityanath claims.
17:52He says,
17:55It's true, it's true that there are no such, this kind of, this level of rapes you don't have anywhere
18:00else on this earth.
18:01No, I understand the criticism, sir.
18:02But, you know, to keep that as a benchmark, because there has been an improvement and one can be, criticize
18:08somebody, but you've got to give him credit for what he's really done.
18:12That's all I'm saying.
18:13You know, allow me to...
18:15That's a claim.
18:16So, we as journalists...
18:18It's also a lived reality by quite a few women and you can hear that.
18:23So, that's all I'm saying.
18:24I'm not saying that he's a savior of women, but you do see a distinction that people draw from what
18:32has been the other terms.
18:33And I think that has been, will be one of the biggest issues which will be faced by the Samajwadi
18:39party once again when it goes into elections next year.
18:42But having said that, let's come back to the topic and I just want to expand the debate again.
18:46I want to bring in Rajat Sethi into this conversation back.
18:49Rajat Sethi, I'll give you an example.
18:52Himanta Biswasarma, when he came into our event in Assam, he walked to the tune of what the BJP's anthem
18:59at that point of time is, Firse Himanta.
19:02So, and that was way before elections, right?
19:05So, I'm not...
19:06All I'm just saying is, does what happened yesterday, where you've had one of the biggest functionaries of the BJP
19:13in a state, say, it's open, there can be anyone who could be chief minister,
19:17feed into the kind of politics which is already being played, where you had people like Akhilesh, you have people
19:24within the Congress who say that there is internal factionalism.
19:28So, 2024 was pitched as Bhitar Ghat by the BJP itself.
19:34So, see, I don't know, what do you expect out of politics?
19:38Do you expect out of politics that it's a very simplistic first order level of thinking and engagement?
19:43No, it's a vocation which has been practiced, this art has been practiced over millennia and millennia.
19:50Of course, there will be ambitions.
19:52Of course, there will be competing claims.
19:54But he has successfully led the party for 10 years with very few chief ministers in the state of Uttar
19:59Pradesh can actually claim.
20:01In spite of severe competition, in spite of you calling him an outsider, he still gets the support of both
20:08the RSS as well as the top leadership of the BJP.
20:11Do you think it is that hard for the prime minister to actually boot out a chief minister who he
20:15dislikes?
20:16All right. Can I cut you there? Because I'm running short of time. I'm going to try and get in
20:19other people as well.
20:20Swati, 30 seconds, make your point.
20:24I'm pretty simple. Yogi is BJP's political mascot. And I would echo you that, you know, things on the ground
20:29in UP have actually improved.
20:31We have to be fair. You know, in terms of cutting down on law and order, the crackdown is perceptible.
20:37I mean, it'll be unfair to say that it's not. Number one. And number two, also corruption.
20:42Yogi is seen as a political strongman, as in fact, as a contender to be, you know, Modi's heir,
20:47simply because of the fact that there's been a bit of a change in Uttar Pradesh.
20:51And if Uttar Pradesh changes even a little, it reflects across the whole country.
20:56Fair point. But Swati, does it also somewhere down the line focus on the factionalism that there is?
21:00If you remember in 2024, the BJP constituted a committee to figure out on what really went wrong when they
21:07won just 36 of 80.
21:09And what they really did come up with was Beethar Ghat, internal factionalism.
21:15Absolutely, Preeti. I mean, you see, we are seeing all these Brahmins and Melans which are held almost daily
21:19because there is a perception that what is going on in Lucknow is Thakur Raj, which is Yogi's own caste.
21:26So, you know, the other, and we all know what a caste estate UPA is.
21:31So, you know, all the other castes are extremely restive.
21:33And the BJP is definitely worried about that.
21:35Lots of layers to this argument.
21:38Shalat Pradhanji, sir, final comments.
21:41Well, I would again, I reiterate that this Modi speaks of Modi's success and about his publicity.
21:50And that's what he's led people to believe.
21:52I mean, even objective journalists like Swati are willing to believe what is being filtered and sent across to everyone.
22:01And if you see in reality, your own ground is far different.
22:06The insiders, as far as corruption is concerned, please bear with me.
22:10Corruption, if you inquire, and this is not from me.
22:13This is from people sitting in Yogi's scheme of things at the helm of air.
22:19When I mentioned this to somebody, because I wrote a book on Yogi published by Penguin,
22:23in which I mentioned that Yogi is a very honest chief minister and UP's got an honest chief minister after
22:30a very long time.
22:31This is what I stated in the book.
22:32And when I mentioned this to a very senior bureaucrat, his reply was,
22:37his reply was,
22:39Shalatji, I've heard that the rate is higher.
22:41But please, this is not a thing.
22:44I've run out of time.
22:45They are saying it.
22:46But Shalat Pradhanji, I don't know about the corruption,
22:49but a lot of us who've been on ground, there might be lots of issues where Yogi Adityanath's governance is
22:55concerned,
22:55especially when it comes down towards a certain community.
22:59And we can talk about that and debate that.
23:02And that is contentious, deeply contentious.
23:04But on the issue of law and order, most journalists, if they are fair,
23:08and they actually hear the people, it will resonate that most people see Yogi's government or his rule a lot
23:16better than the previous terms.
23:18And you can see that, you can hear that.
23:21And if you don't look at it, then you're just looking at one side of the story.
23:24But that's it.
23:24I'm going to leave it at that.
23:25I appreciate all of you coming in, putting your points forward.
23:28Thank you there.
23:29This is a debate that we are going to have in months to come going ahead.