Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be 73 plus when India goes to vote in 2024. By the standards set by himself, he should be joining the Margdarshak Mandal by 2026. Should he step down in 2026 or lose the election in 2024, who will be his successor? It may look awkward to ask who after Modi at this moment in time, but within BJP itself, these discussions are taking place. So, has Yogi, who was not even the party’s chief ministerial face in 2017, been cut to size and asked to confine himself to Gorakhpur? His ambitions may have unsettled many within the party. His deputy Keshav Prasad Maurya has ambitions of his own. At the national level, Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari and even Amit Shah are certainly biding for time. “If he was allowed to contest from Ayodhya and managed to win, surely he may have become a national cult, challenging brand Modi and his deputy Amit Shah”, claims a party insider. So, there is a possibility that the decision to field yogi from Gorakhpur was made to cut an outsider (for his Hindu Vahini links),” claim party veterans.In any case, Ayodhya isn’t a cakewalk for BJP even this time. Not even for Yogi. In 2017 Ved Prakash Gupta of BJP won the seat by a margin of 50,440 votes. Tej Narayan Pandey of SP got 56,574 while Bazmi Siddiqui of BSP had to satisfy with 39,554 votes. In 2012 Tej Narayan Pandey of the Samajwadi party had defeated Lallu Singh of the BJP by the narrow margin of 5,405 votes. But in the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections, Samajwadi Party managed to collect 40.9 percent votes from the constituency, despite the hype created around temple construction. If OBCs and SCs decide to back the Samajwadi Party Congress candidate puts up a decent show, as anticipated, BJP may find it tough to win in Ayodhya, say local poll pundits. A tough fight against Yogi can also be put up in Gorakhpur, but its alliance with Nishad Party makes BJP and the incumbent CM more confident.
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