Watch Nidhi Razdan: Lessons from BJP’s infighting in India

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Transcript

00:00Ever since the BJP's disastrous showing in Uttar Pradesh in the Lok Sabha elections,

00:09the knives have been out for Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. The attacks have been coming

00:13from no less than his deputy chief ministers, particularly Keshav Maurya. And everyone knows

00:19that Keshav Maurya wouldn't be making these jibes at Yogi Adityanath without the blessing

00:23of the central leadership. Everyone had been talking about a rift between Yogi Adityanath

00:28and Home Minister Amit Shah, but it's now there for everyone to see. The question is,

00:32will the BJP leadership eventually remove him from the chief minister's position? And

00:37will Yogi go quietly? Well, if you look at the way the Modi-Shah duo have dealt with

00:42stalwarts in the party over the last decade, we can see that one, there has been an over

00:46centralization of power with them. And that regional faces like Shivraj Chauhan, Basundra

00:53Raje, Raman Singh have all either been cut down to size or sidelined in some way or the other.

00:58Shivraj Chauhan, of course, is now back as Union Agriculture Minister, but it's not the same.

01:03And at the end of the day, they may try to do the same with Yogi, except Yogi Adityanath is

01:08very popular in the BJP rank and file. He is in fact considered the most popular leader in the

01:13BJP after Narendra Modi himself. So will it actually be that easy for Delhi to remove

01:19Yogi Adityanath from his post? He's unlikely to go quietly, even if he does. And it could

01:24have major repercussions politically for the party in the all-important state. The next few

01:30weeks and months are going to be critical. There are by-elections coming up to 10 assembly seats

01:34in UP. And that could really determine Yogi's fate, as well as the BJP's future trajectory

01:39in the state. Will they recover lost ground or are they slowly unravelling in UP?