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Mar

Will ‘Maha Kumbh’ Help BJP In Elections In Yogi’s U.P.?

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N Sathiya Moorthy

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Chennai | Monday | 3 March 2025

This is not the first ‘Maha Kumbh’ in Prayagraj, formerly Allahabad, nor will it be the last one. But the way the ruling BJP  made it into an unprecedented media-hype through those 45 days and later, too, it would seem that it was only one of its kind – like the ruling Congress at the Centre hyped CHOGM and Asiad-82 during Indira Gandhi’s regime. Of course, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had his own G-20 summit, which in other nations, other venues, remained one more of the periodic summit meetings, where much more was written about the problems of managing the security of global leaders meeting at one place and those of protocol than about any substantive discussions and outcomes, over which outcomes were as low as the expectations.

So, when someone is talking so much about the economics of the Maha Kumbh, the curiosity actually arises as to what it’s all about. While the government expenditure, mostly borne by the host government in Uttar Pradesh, is put at  ₹ 7,000-  ₹ 10,000 crores, the earnings thereof is calculated variously between  ₹ 2-3 lakh crores. The underlying and often unsaid argument is that the benefits came to the ordinary man and woman on the streets of Uttar Pradesh, and they should and would thank BJP chief minister Yogi Adityanath, eternally for the windfall.

Translated, such an argument implies that Yogi and the ruling BJP will win the next assembly elections hands down, thanks mainly to the economics of the Maha Kumbh as for the fervour attaching to the world’s largest religious pilgrimage. It may be true, if at all, only up to a point. If only CM Adityanath wants to have the state assembly dissolved for fresh elections to be ordered here and now, no one can predict the mood and methods of the UP voters that are not due two years from now, February 2027.

Article at a Glance
The recent Maha Kumbh in Prayagraj, while not unprecedented, has been heavily publicized by the ruling BJP, reminiscent of past government spectacles like CHOGM and Asiad-82. The economic implications of the Kumbh are significant, with government expenditures estimated between ₹7,000-₹10,000 crores and potential earnings ranging from ₹2-3 lakh crores. This has led to speculation that the BJP, under Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, could benefit electorally from the event, although the actual impact on voter sentiment remains uncertain until the next assembly elections in February 2027.
The Kumbh has reportedly attracted millions, with claims of 66 crore visitors, raising questions about the accuracy of such figures. The event has provided economic opportunities for local vendors, including notable figures like Monalisa Bhosle, a flower vendor who gained fame during the Kumbh. However, the lack of clear data on vendor profits and government revenue complicates the narrative of widespread economic benefit.
As the political landscape evolves, the BJP's performance in the upcoming elections will be closely scrutinized, especially in light of past electoral challenges. The dynamics between Modi, Yogi, and Amit Shah will play a crucial role in shaping the party's future. Ultimately, the Kumbh's success as a political tool will depend on how effectively the BJP can translate its economic claims into electoral gains amidst a complex and shifting voter landscape.

Much water, clean or dirty, would have flowed down the Ganga – and Yamuna, too – by then, and no one can predict the voter-mood at that distance in time. Yes, if Maha Kumbh is being promoted as a ‘feel good factor’, both for the religiosity and economic benefits to the common man of UP, that too may have only limited electoral application after what Ayodhya-inclusive Faridabad and Faridabad-inclusive Uttar Pradesh taught the BJP and the Modi-Yogi combo, it one existed, after the inauguration of the controversial Ram temple only weeks / months ahead of the Lok Sabha polls last year.

Kumbh booty

It does not stop there. Remember Monalisa Bhosle, the 16-year-old flower vendor who took the internet by storm at the Kumbh, especially in the early weeks, and was promised a prominent role in an upcoming movie. She came from Khargone district in Madhya Pradesh and would have taken back her share of the ‘Kumbh booty’ in terms of her lil’ share of the ₹ 2-3 lakh crore total earnings.

You can argue that the Kumbh commerce has spread its benefits not just within Uttar Pradesh but has also spread it across neighbouring states. But Monalisa was not a loner and a lot more of those vendors would have come from states closer to UP on all sides – some from faraway destinations, too. Other than the unluckiest of the unlucky, each one of them would have made substantial gains from whatever goods, from food to trinkets that they traded in.

There are no clear numbers, either about the number of out-of-state vendors, or about the profits that they took back home. Nor is there any clear account of those numbers as far as traders from within the state were concerned. Much of the Kumbh accommodation earnings have to be assumed to have gone to local firms or individuals – barring those who preferred the massive ‘Kumbh City’ built by the state government so meticulously.

As for the government revenue, one only can wait until the state administration comes up with its own final figures, now or later, or never. That’s also the money that would go to fund and finance governmental schemes, from physical to social infrastructure, from roads to electricity to schools and hospitals. Of course, a lot is being said about the Yogi government’s infrastructure initiatives through its two terms, but that too did not show results in the parliamentary polls.

Leave aside the past, the nation will have to see how much of revenue the UP treasury earned from the Kumbh Mela, as alone it used to be called until not very long ago, and how much of it gets ploughed back into the government’s spending – be it poll-populist measures like subsidies and/or more meaningful infrastructure projects. Until then, those promoting and propagating a political agenda of the kind will have to keep their counsel to themselves. If nothing else, they may have to find answers when they were otherwise not expected to do so.

Decennial deadline

Human memory is short, and it is more so in this era of Google and Wikipedia era. Because they may not have witnessed one in their young age, and might not have even heard of one when they were busy tied down to their schools, books and board exams unlike their parental generation, the present one may not have even known such a thing existed. And to them, the idea of going to the internet for information is a second nature that they do not intend storing anything that they have heard or read in their memory, if it does not concern their exams, or earnings.

So difficult has re-adjustment become even for the older generation that had been witness to a Maha Kumbh every 12 years and an Aardh Kumbh every other 12 years that they too have forgotten even in their younger days, it used to be the case. That is one Maha Kumbh every 12 years and one Aardh Kumbh six years in between.

Many, if not all of them, would have made the long and even more arduous trip and taken the holy trip at least once in their active years. Many more would have also read about it all in the daily newspapers, be it in English or a multitude of local languages. What is different this time was the unending TV and social media coverage that it got. Remember even Monalisa began getting her to be known across the world and possibly across the world, even where Indians did not live, only because of social media, first.

Yet, it remains to be seen if the claims (by whom, and what was the yardstick?) of 66 crore of Indians visiting the Maha Kumbh are corroborated by substantive evidence. One yardstick is if it makes it to the ‘Guinness Book of World Records’. Some may say that the Guinness if not infallible but there would be others who even at the start of any such argument shut down the idea alleging ‘anti-Bharat’ bias by every western institution.

At the moment however unless one is ready to accept the possibility of hundreds of thousands of pilgrims visited the place more than once and took the holy dip more than once, it is inconceivable that a high 66 crore, or nearly half the 140-crore population (47 per cent to be precise) would have visited the holy place. It is again inconceivable what kind of a scientific method of head-counts could have been applied when it is unlike the door-to-door national census, which again has missed its decennial deadline by five years.

Feeble noises

For those that keep thinking about the next assembly elections in UP and also Yogi having a possible walk-over owing to the successful conduct of the Maha Kumbh, they may have something (more coming). In the process, you have to discount the death of the stampede deaths, which were unfortunate all the same.

If you have the assembly elections around February 2022 or a few weeks earlier, unless of course Yogi wants to push the poll-clock forward, there is also the twin polls to the presidency and vice-presidency later in the year. When one thinks and talks about Yogi’s political future, it is inevitable that those of PM Modi and his own Chanakya in Home Minister Amit Shah also gets into the picture.

It is a triangular equation, whose edges were blunted after the Lok Sabha polls last year only because the BJP did not have the numbers and the party could not afford to fight it out in the open. Two and even more important, in a tactical move to which the INDI combine Opposition is yet to react in full, the BJP mandarins got the NDA leaders to meet first and at the earliest to endorse Modi’s continuance as Prime Minister for a third consecutive term.

The Congress-led Opposition made feeble noises and no newspaper carried an editorial that criticised the procedural fault in President Draupadi Murmu inviting Modi to form a government without his BJP Lok Sabha party formally electing him as their leader. The endorsement, by individual NDA members of the Lok Sabha should have followed.

The constitutional scheme, as has become the norm in the past so many decades of ‘hung Parliament’ should not have been replaced by a whimsical procedure. It’s not that the Opposition was anywhere near forming a government at the time.

But the rush-through of Modi’s re-election as PM kicked off doubts, however feeble, if the party leadership anticipated trouble from within. It was primarily from within the party and otherwise from within the larger NDA, where Andhra’s Chandrababu Naidu and Bihar’s Nitish Kumar as electoral allies had the potential to upset the apple-cart.

Muscle-flexing

So, what does 2022 hold for the nation, starting with the ruling BJP at the Centre and in states like Uttar Pradesh? If the likes of Yogi had to lie low after parliamentary polls last year, it was because of the low BJP tally from UP. Imagine a situation in which the party sweeps the assembly polls in February, and Yogi is also allowed to claim ownership as the MoShah duo allowed him (only) ahead of the 2017 elections.

Will Yogi then try and flex his muscle with Delhi in his radar. The chances are less as he would still not have enough MPs backing him. It is also becoming increasingly clear that despite his not being able to obtain a majority for the party last year, Modi may still remain the most popular leader in the country and the most cashable leader for his party.

If so, where would that lead Amit Shah? Will he have to wait until the Lok Sabha polls of 2029, when he would be 65 years old and Yogi, for instance, would be 57 – and Modi, 79 years?  And did you hear someone telling the nation that the BJP would not have top leaders who had crossed 75? That was when they wanted to eject the long-since forgotten Advani as the party’s prime ministerial candidate, way back in 2014!

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(The writer is a Chennai-based Policy Analyst & Political Commentator.)

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