Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath.
Credit: Reuters File Photo
Lucknow: It was a slogan that not only worked for the BJP in politically crucial state of Uttar Pradesh and enabled the saffron party to make a clean sweep in the assembly by-polls and win seven of the nine seats, but it also reverberated in the Maharashtra and Jharkhand assembly polls.
Saffron clad UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s slogan ‘batenge to katenge’ (if we are not united then we will be slaughtered) was widely used in the by-polls in the state and it appeared to have clicked with the electorate going by the results.
Adityanath, while addressing party workers here after the results, once again reiterated his much publicised 'batenge to katenge' slogan. He specifically referred to the BJP victory in Muslim dominated Kundarki seat. "It's the victory of nationalism....every person remembers his roots.....I think those who had deviated from the path (converted to Islam) must have remembered their gotra and castes," he said.
The main opposition Samajwadi Party (SP) tried to counter the slogan with its own ‘’na batenge, na katenge’ (we will neither be divided nor be slaughtered) and the PDA (pichda, dalit, alpsankhyak) formula but was unable to stop the BJP juggernaut.
The results of the by-polls showed that Adityanath’s slogan succeeded in polarising the voters along communal lines in several constituencies and almost every caste, including the Dalits, who had sided with the I.N.D.I.A bloc in the recent Lok Sabha polls, voted for the saffron party.
Political analysts also attributed Dalits’ support for the BJP to the absence of Congress in the by-polls. ‘’The results show that the people preferred religion over castes,’’ remarked a Lucknow based political analyst while speaking to DH here.
BJP’s impressive win in Kundarki seat, where Muslims were in sizable numbers, showed that the Muslims had also voted for the party in good numbers.
BJP leaders had referred to Adityanath’s remarks in their election meetings in the hope that it would ‘polarise’ the Hindu voters.
That the slogan had put the opposition on the defensive was evident from the fact that the SP leaders had directed their party workers not to mention the BJP’s slogan but to tell the people about their slogans.
Speaking at a function in Agra a few days back, Adityanath had said that ‘’Bangladesh ki halat dekh rahen hain na....ek rahenge to nek rahenge....batenge to katenge’’ (You must have seen the situation in Bangladesh....if you remain united, you will be safe...if you are divided then you will be slaughtered.
Prime minister Narendra Modi had also referred to the remarks during a public meeting in Maharashtra later.
A few days back the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) also appeared to support Adityanath’s remarks saying that the remarks meant that Hindus should not get divided on the basis of caste, language and religion and needed to be united.