Gorakhpur has voted Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for three decades and we can’t help but wonder which group of residents opted for such a dramatic U-turn in today’s election. Was it those Indians who love the Taj Mahal and who couldn’t bear to see the pride of their state being left out of the tourism booklet? Perhaps they felt upset when Adityanath said the Taj Mahal is not part of Indian culture and a replica of the 17th-century Mughal tomb should not be gifted to visiting foreign dignitaries?
Was it fans of Shah Rukh Khan who wanted to give the actor a present before his next film, Zero, releases later this year? They’re still smarting from the time Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath compared their idol to terrorist Hafeez Sayeed. Was it all the young lovers who resent the state’s intervention in their private lives and who show their middle finger to the concept of love jihad? Or Mother Teresa bhakts who got angry when Adityanath said she was was part of a conspiracy to evangelise India. Or those voters who struggle with the idea of beginning their day with Surya Namaskar, even if Hinduism runs in their veins. Why should they leave the country on account of their dislike for yoga?
Or the residents who rolled their eyes when Adityanath recently said no riots have taken place in UP in the last ten months. Or did he evoke the ire of the citizens of a syncretic nation and all those who wait for that biryani and kheer invitation when he said he wouldn’t celebrate Eid because he was a Hindu? Or was it driven by families—families whose newborn babies keep dying in the hospitals for a variety of reasons including lack of oxygen and the families whose sons have been shot dead in more than 900 encounters since Adityanath became chief minister and also the families who have faced loss because their loved ones were murdered in the name of the cow.
Maybe it was those who don’t feel any particular affinity to the bovine residents of our country and who were mad when the state government allocated ₹233 crore in its budget to promote and conserve cows. Did the BJP government already issue 40 million cattle a unique 12-digit identity number as it was widely reported last year? Maybe they threw in some voter ID cards in UP as an experiment and it was the cows of UP who voted the BJP out in today’s election.