Lucknow: Was the previous Samajwadi Party govt as good as the present BJP dispensation? What will happen if BJP govt is replaced by SP in the 2027 Assembly elections? Will the change bring back the alleged conditions that prevailed between 2012 and 2017 when SP was in office?These are among the questions that BJP plans to toss up at the youth as it seeks to turn the memories of Akhilesh govt into an electoral narrative before the Assembly polls.BJP youth wing — Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) — will launch a statewide campaign in universities and colleges to “caution” young voters against the possibility of return to “jungle raj”, poor law and order, and misgovernance if SP comes back to power.The campaign, tentatively titled ‘Sarthak Yuva Samvad’, is expected to be rolled out soon after the constitution of state and district-level teams of BJYM. It will directly engage students and first-time voters with BJP MPs, MLAs and MLCs who are expected to participate in the interactions.“A good number of youth think that the situation prevailing today also existed between 2012 and 2017. They believe that a change in govt would not alter the conditions. They need to be corrected and apprised of the reality,” UP BJYM president Rohit Mishra told TOI.The move is significant because a large section of the electorate that will vote in 2027 has little or no direct political memory of the 2012-17 SP govt. BJP’s challenge, therefore, is not merely to attack SP’s record but to make a generation of young voters relate to a period it only knows largely through political narratives.The proposed campaign is likely to be less about conventional political rallies and more about drawing a contrast between the two govts on issues that directly affect youth: crime, law and order, employment, education, and social harmony.Mishra said BJYM will present data from National Crime Records Bureau and other key indicators to show how the state witnessed a spate of caste and communal riots and how the collapse of law and order fuelled unemployment and social problems.Analysts said BJP’s strategy reflects an emerging feature of the 2027 contest: the battle over Uttar Pradesh’s political memory. For BJP, the 2012-17 SP govt represents a period that can be invoked to reinforce its core law-and-order narrative. The party has repeatedly sought to contrast Yogi govt’s governance model with the “jungle raj” of the SP era. The challenge, however, is that younger voters may not necessarily share that memory.A voter in the 18-22 age group in 2027 would have been a child during SP govt’s 2012-2017 tenure. For such voters, BJP’s portrayal of that period will compete with SP’s narrative of its tenure, as well as with their personal experience of the current govt.This makes the proposed university and college campaign particularly significant. Instead of merely telling young voters what happened during the SP govt, BJP intends to create a forum where the past can be contrasted with their present-day concerns.Mishra said they would try to understand the youth’s expectations from the present govt and also hear their grievances. Students would be given an opportunity to voice their concerns, he said, suggesting that the campaign would combine BJP’s political messaging with an effort to gather feedback from a constituency that has become increasingly important in electoral politics.After the Cockroach Janta Party-led protest over the NEET paper leak forced education minister Dharmendra Pradhan to resign. BJP leadership, including PM Narendra Modi and BJP national president Nitin Nabin, have been treading cautiously while reaching out to youth on various occasions. In UP, the youth-centric drive is being sharpened with Yogi Adityanath promising over 1 lakh govt jobs to them over the next six months.
