With BJP on a roll, UP a sour grape for Opposition ahead of LS polls

RED, WHITE — AND SAFFRON: Akhilesh challenges the BJP’s UP strategy, questioning whether liquor is the tonic for a trillion-dollar economy. Global investors toast to UP’s resurgence as the state uncorks a robust FDI vintage. The question lingers: Is the heady blend of a bold excise policy and airport expansion enough of a pick-me-up? ADITI PHADNIS writes

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Uttar Pradesh (UP) is on a roll.

Last week, the Cabinet of the Yogi Adityanath-headed government cleared the excise policy for 2024–25.

For the first time, the government has introduced a franchise fee so that global brands can collaborate with local distilleries in UP to use existing bottling facilities and augment supply without the pressure of setting up new distilleries.

Beer shops will now be able to develop 100 square metres in an adjoining space as ‘permit rooms’ at a cost of Rs 5,000 a year so that people don’t have to stand out on the street to drink.

UP will also launch new varieties of wine made from mango, jamun, jackfruit, grape, lychee, and guava, all fruits grown in the state.

Sanjay Gupta, a local businessman who has set up the first wine project in the state on his property, Gupta Resorts, in Muzaffarnagar, says his project is underway: “The unit has been installed on National Highway 58 and will have the capacity to produce 155 litres of wine per day, which means an annual production of over 50,000 litres.”

The policy is not without its critics.

Akhilesh Yadav, former chief minister (CM) and Samajwadi Party (SP) chief, reacted sharply to the liberalisation of the excise policy.

“Is this the only way left for the UP BJP government to create a $1 trillion economy by selling liquor at railway and Metro stations and on cruise ships? It means that all the claims of investments worth crores of rupees are false, which is why the government is adopting such unethical means (to earn revenue),” Yadav said.

But this is not all.

Since October, the UP government has taken many significant administrative steps that are likely to have a far-reaching impact.

The decks are being cleared for the construction of nine more airports in the state over the next two years.

The Union Minister of Civil Aviation let the cat out of the bag in the Lok Sabha (LS) last week when answering supplementaries. He said UP had got three airports in the past 65 years, and this number was expected to go up to 18 by 2025–26, including a facility in Meerut. The UP Assembly elections are due in 2026.

In November, the state government acknowledged that foreign direct investment (FDI) flows into the state, at Rs 9,435 crore (about $1.13 billion), or 0.7 per cent of FDI inflows into India between October 2019 and December 2022, were low and announced a new FDI policy with incentives for overseas investors, including exemptions in land acquisition, stamp duty, and capital investment.

Other voter-friendly moves have been cleared by the government.

The state government will give two free liquefied petroleum gas cylinder refills to the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana beneficiaries for two quarters, from October 2023 to March 2024. The move will cover 17.5 million families and cost the state government Rs 2,312 crore. The beneficiaries will first get a cylinder refill (14.2 kilograms) by paying the prevailing consumer rate, and the subsidy will be refunded later by oil companies to the Aadhaar-certified account of the beneficiaries.

In an interaction in Delhi, Opposition leader Akhilesh Yadav announced he was ready to meet the political challenge head-on. “Our slogan is: ‘80 harao, BJP hatao’” (‘defeat BJP on all 80 UP LS seats and oust it’).

But it might not be that easy.

In November, the central BJP called a meeting of all the top leaders of the state unit, including the two deputy CMs. The meeting discussed ways to get feedback on the performance of representatives, especially Members of Parliament (MPs).

“Labour under no illusion. Once we get the feedback, up to 30 per cent of the sitting MPs could be replaced (from the state). The feedback should start coming in by December,” said a BJP general secretary who belongs to the state. A follow-up meeting took place on Friday.

The party lost 15 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in 2019 following a tie-up between the SP and the Bahujan Samaj Party (while the Congress retained its Raebareli seat).

‘Vistaraks’ or observers of the central party have been deployed in all 15. These are Union ministers tasked with turning the result around. The BJP has already clawed back two LS seats — Azamgarh and Rampur — in the by-elections.

Rambahadur Rai, a former journalist and now the chief of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, says the biggest achievement of the Yogi Adityanath government is to rid “the state of its bimaru (sickly) tag”.

This development, along with the ceremonials around the Ram Temple unveiling in January 2024, will likely be the propelling factor for the BJP in the upcoming LS elections.

And it is well into campaign mode already.