The Bharatiya Janata Party in Uttar Pradesh finally again had to revert to the Ram temple issue to regain its lost political glory in the crucial state for the coming Assembly polls.
The BJP manifesto, released in Lucknow on Friday, looks towards a grand Ram temple if voted to power.
“Construction of a grand temple is associated with the faith of crores of people of the country. Ram is the symbol of prestige, pride and dignity of the country. Unfortunately, due to pseudo-secularism and votebank politics it is being opposed by parties like the Congress, SP and BSP. The BJP is committed to remove all hurdles in the path of construction of Ram temple,” the manifesto said.
The BJP, in an interesting development, says it will restructure parks and memorials built during Mayawati’s regime. The manifesto says that Ms Mayawati has ignored several others leaders, including Kabir, Ravidas, Valmiki , Uda Devi, Jhalkari Bai and Bijli Pasi, and if the BJP comes to power it will add the statues of these icons by restructuring the memorials and parks.
The idea is apparently to win over those dalit sub-castes that have been ignored in the Mayawati regime. The BJP is shrewdly trying to win over a sizeable section of dalits who do not belong to the same sub-caste as Ms Mayawati.
The BJP also promises to set up a commission to probe the corruption in Mayawati regime and will seize the property of those found guilty of corruption.
The BJP manifesto makes a case for strong opposition to Muslim reservation from within the OBC quota. “The Congress has started this dangerous trend and we will not allow religion-based reservation. There shall be no division in the OBC quota if the party comes to power,” said senior BJP leader Om Prakash Singh.
The manifesto makes promises to all sections of society — 33 per cent reservation for women in government jobs, loan waiver up to `1 lakh for farmers, a cow for every BPL family, free laptops for poor students, subsidised tablets at `1,000 each for students up to high school and laptops at `5,000 for students in intermediate, free cycles to girl students and an unemployment allowance of `24,000 for unemployed youth.
Mr Sudheendra Kulkarni explained, “Our stress is on good governance and this has already been proved by the governments in BJP ruled states. We will make Uttar Pradesh the best state in the country.”