Uttar Pradesh Elections 2017: After PM Modi's 'Ramazan-Diwali' Speech, A BJP Conundrum In Ayodhya

Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh: As the UP election juggernaut rolls into the temple town of Ayodhya and its twin city, Faizabad, development and good governance, which were the BJP's main promises in the general election, are on shaky ground here.

The promise to build a bhavya or magnificent Ram Mandir (temple) at the site of the 16th-century Babri Masjid, brought down in 1992 by lakhs of volunteers or karsevaks of right-wing groups like the VHP, still holds sway.

There is some confusion among leaders of the BJP in Ayodhya after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speech on Sunday where he stated that no caste or religion should be shown preferential treatment . His "Diwali-Ramazan" remarks (power supply during Ramazan must be matched by similar arrangements during Diwali) told off the government of Akhilesh Yadav for allegedly favouring Muslims, a large chunk of his support base.

In Ayodhya, party workers don't know whether they should devote more talk time to Mr Modi's economic goals or the Ram Mandir dispute. However, there is no trace of this tension at the Chhoti Chavni temple in Ayodhya where head priest Nritya Gopal Das is waiting to be asked to campaign for the BJP candidate. He presides over one of the biggest temples in the town and is the face of the BJP's local campaign for the Ram Mandir.

"No one has asked me to campaign so far, but if they do, I will do my duty towards the BJP which is the only party that will make the Ram Mandir here," the priest, who is in his 70s, said.
 Ayodhya, in the Awadh region of Uttar Pradesh and 130 kms from the state capital of Lucknow, votes on Monday. Ayodhya and adjoining areas elect five state legislators.In the last UP election in 2012, the BJP won a lone seat; the others went to the Samajwadi Party, benefitting from the high-dividends campaign of Akhilesh Yadav, then just 37 years old. His talk of development did the trick.

Since 1991, the promise of building a Ram Mandir has made it to every election manifesto of the BJP. But in 2012, Ayodhya finally ended a dream run for the party's Lalu Singh, who had won five terms in the state legislature. In fact, of the 35 seats located on the 84-kosiparikrama, considered the sacred boundary of Ayodhya according to scriptures, the Samajwadi Party won 25 in the last election in 2012.

50-year-old Gopal Tiwari explains why. "There has been no development in Ayodhya as compared to other towns in UP, because the BJP had to do absolutely nothing to win from here, except promising a grand Ram Mandir.  The people got tired of waiting for both the temple as well as better roads and electricity. So they decided to vote for the Samajwadi Party in the last election," he said at his shop which sells religious calendars at the foot of Ayodhya's largest temple.

Despite his defeat, Lalu Singh was chosen as the BJP's candidate in the general election.  Riding the famous Modi wave, he won from the Faizabad parliamentary constituency, which includes Ayodhya. The achche din slogan, pledging better economic times, worked brilliantly for the BJP in UP, getting them 72 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats. With that as the trend-setter, the party decided, for this current election, to emphasize sabka saath, sabka vikas (development for all) rather than the Ram Mandir.

Many believe that's why  the party ignored the claim of Hishikesh Upadhyaya, a long-time BJP activist, and the choice of the powerful mahants or priests for the Ayodhya ticket, and opted instead for Ved Prakash Gupta, who runs a successful transport business. Though he has party-hopped wildly, he is more on-brand for the BJP's focus on development and is not inherently identified with the Ram Mandir agenda.
 But the BJP's Vinay Katiyar, who won three Lok Sabha elections from Faizabad and is now a member of the Rajya Sabha, suggests his party must link development in Ayodhya with the Ram Mandir. His logic: if you build it, they will come. "Ayodhya is a religious centre, which will prosper only when the mandir comes up," he said.

There is no politician who denies that the infrastructure of Ayodhya is astoundingly poor, a result of complacency - the pilgrims will visit no matter what - and the excessive focus for years on Ram Mandir politics. But as the town made its changing aspirations clear, ahead of the election, Akhilesh Yadav and the BJP government at the centre unveiled their own projects for Ayodhya, neither of which is likely to fix the bijli, sadak, paani problems. No roads, power, water. Akhilesh Yadav has announced a Ram theme park, the centre a Ramayana museum.

"Why don't they set up some industry which can give employment to my two sons who are both graduates?" asks Brij Yadav, who runs a dhaba near the Ayodhya railway station, "not every young person here wants to be a shopkeeper, a guide or pundit."

His frustration is shared by Waliullah, one of Ayodhya's 5,000 Muslims whose tailoring establishment was burnt down during the violence of 1992. "It is dangerous to link development to the construction of the Ram Mandir or to any kind of appeasement politics. Because it immediately shifts the nazar (focus) from people's everyday problems to the Ram Janmabhumi-Babri Masjid controversy."

 Ayodhya may have been replaced by the PM's constituency of Varanasi as the most important city for the BJP in Uttar Pradesh, and building a Ram Mandir may have no role - or a limited one at best - in Mr Modi's development agenda, but the temple town continues to hold great symbolic value for the party. The next general election is just two years away now - and if the BJP does not perform well in the constituencies here, the temptation to abandon the focus on vikas for what has traditionally served the party is likely to gain a whole lot of traction.