With the elevation of Gujarat CM into the 12-member Parliamentary Board and prominence given to faces of Hindutva force, i.e., Varun Gandhi, Uma Bharti and Vinay Katiyar, it is almost certain that party would like to use an aggressive Hindutva card in the forthcoming polls.

State BJP leaders feel that the party would like to project Varun Gandhi as its ‘youth face’ in UP, so as to take on young chief minister Akhilesh Yadav.

Varun Gandhi is expected to play a major role for overhauling the party in UP during the election campaigns for 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

BJP would also like to use Varun Gandhi to win over youth votes for BJP. It was felt that since the old guards were at the helm of party’s affairs, the youth had been alienated from BJP for quite some time.

It would be worth mentioning here that Varun Gandhi was almost sidelined during 2012 assembly polls and he was not in the party’s list of star campaigners. That is why the other Gandhi kept himself limited only to his own parliamentary constituency.

During last one decade, the state BJP has remained at third or fifth position in the elections held during this period.

There is great demand in BJP quarters in UP that Gujarat CM Narendra Modi should be projected as prime ministerial candidate and should also contest from Lucknow, which had been a BJP seat since 1991. Atal Behari Vajpayee had been elected to Lok Sabha from Lucknow for many terms.

The BJP leaders feel should Narendra Modi contest from Lucknow, it would electrify the party workers in neighbouring districts as well.

With Modi, Uma Bharti, Varun Gandhi as BJP’s star campaigners and party’s grand design to revive Hindutva, there is a feeling that there could be intense polarisation of Muslim votes for a particular party.

Muslim leaders feel that the projection of Narendra Modi as prime minister would help Congress win in a big way.

But Zafaryab Jilani, convener of the Babri Masjid Action Committee, says that in those states, wherein Congress is weak, it would help the powerful regional party. “In UP, Muslims are close to Samajwadi Party, as compared to Congress, so SP would gain in polarisation” he added.

Imam Idgarh Maulana Khalid Rasheed Firangimahali said that by playing the communal card, BJP was helping Congress in big way all over the country. (IPA)