BJP's Hindutva credentials have never been in doubt. With its audacious gamble on Adityanath, who was among its most popular state leaders in pre-poll internal surveys, the party has done nothing more than pin its own colours to the mast, making a clear play for a Hindu consolidation leading up to 2019. Critics saying with horror that the saffron party is Hindu don't tell voters anything they didn't know already.


With Yogi as its political UP mascot, BJP's political signalling couldn't be clearer. Hindutva is not something we use only instrumentally to get votes, the party seems to be saying, and then junk after winning elections. It is intrinsic to its development focus too, with a notion of progress that is intertwined with notions of Hindu-ness. The two are inseparable, not separate compartments to pick and choose from.


No appeasement, no apologies, no double meaning: this is the political message. The collapse of UP's caste praxis and the Mandal vote has led to a hard calculation that the party has very little to lose from such a gambit.

Read Nalin Mehta's column here.