Despair in Sakshi Maharaj’s Unnao constituency | The Caravan

Sachchidanand Hari, popularly known as Sakshi Maharaj, faced widespread anger in his Unnao constituency, which voted on 13 May. ”We meet him only during elections—his phone is switched off the rest of the time,” one voter said.

“The people have voted for Sakshi Maharaj twice in the name of Modi,” Vedanti, who claimed to be politically unaffiliated, said. “He has tested them twice. Now, Modiji’s promises have not come true, so the public has started losing faith in his words. This time, it does not seem like the people will vote even in Modi’s name.” He noted that core BJP supporters had not deserted, while “those who have jobs, get pensions, earn a good salary or have big businesses” had also remained with the party, but everyone else, who faced “a livelihood crisis,” were considering other options.

Ground reports suggest that, despite the euphoria over the consecration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, on 22 January, there is widespread discontent among party workers over the distribution of tickets, the marginalisation of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the perception that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would use another landslide victory to cut the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Adityanath, down to size. The BJP’s ubiquitous panna pramukhs—party workers charged with reaching out to all the voters on a single page of the electoral rolls—as well as RSS cadre, whose mass mobilisation during the 2014 campaign laid the groundwork for Modi’s rise to power, have reportedly been missing in action in several constituencies.

A video report by Sunil Kashyap and Sibtain Hyder.

Video and Editing: Sibtain Hyder
Subtitling: Rishab Gaur
Copy Editing: Amrita Singh

Read the report on our website: https://caravanmagazine.in/politics/b...

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