Siddhant Mohan, TwoCircles.net
Before swearing in as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath aka Ajay Singh Bisht used to visit Varanasi almost every month with a convoy of SUVs and sedans. Yogi, who was then a member of parliament from Gorakhpur constituency, used to pray at Kashi Vishwanath Temple, and the vehicles labeled with saffron flags of Hindu Yuva Vahini used to stand on the busy road of Chowk and Bulanala waiting for Yogi to come back.
But as soon as the first few phases of assembly election in 2017 passed, district units of Hindu Yuva Vahini in almost every region of the state were disbanded after the nod of Yogi Adityanath.
Soon, Yogi took oath as the chief minister of the state and he went on to disband the central committee of the Vahini as well and told the workers to be more involved in “creative work”. Since that day, no vehicle labelled Hindu Yuva Vahini has stopped on the busy road outside of the Kashi Vishwanath Temple of Varanasi.
Even in the Gorakhpur Bypoll of 2018, one was expecting that the campaign on the ground would be managed by the workers of Hindu Yuva Vahini — the power through which Yogi reigned the Gorakhpur — but Vahini was overshadowed by the Bharatiya Janata Party and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s ground workers. This reflected in the results of the Bypoll where Gorakhpur not only slipped away from the hands of BJP but also from the hands of Gorakshanath Temple, whose chief priest Mahant Avaidyanath followed by Yogi Adityanath used to lead the socio-political diaspora of the district.
However, the absence of Vahini from the scene partially ended on May 13 when a new organisation named “Hindu Yuva Vahini Bharat” was born in Lucknow under the leadership of Sunil Singh, ex-state president of Hindu Yuva Vahini.
The meeting was held in the VVIP guest house of Lucknow and Singh was elected as National President of the new outfit, clearing any doubt that Yogi Adityanath will be associated with the Hindu Yuva Vahini Bharat.
Sunil Singh told TwoCircles.net, “It was Bharatiya Janata Party and the power of the chair on which Yogi (Adityanath) Maharaj Ji is sitting that he did not understand the need of an organisation which had been a dream of Hindu youth in the country.”
“But now we are regrouping afresh and we hope to stand with a full-fledged campaign of Hindutva for which Vahini is popularly known,” Singh added.
Sunil Singh and others were fired from the organisation in March 2017. They were trying for the tickets from BJP to fight assembly elections, but BJP refused to listen to their request. In retaliation, the Vahini leadership tried to field candidates from Hindu Yuva Vahini itself, but this step was enough for Yogi Adityanath to fire them from the organisation. The rebel leaders of Hindu Yuva Vahini successfully fielded 12 candidates from Shiv Sena but couldn’t win any. If sources to be believed, the same leaders had been waiting until now to be taken back in the Yogi Adityanath’s patronage. “It (Hindu Yuva Vahini) has been a disappointment for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Bharatiya Janata Party, under the pressure of which Yogi Adityanath has to disband the outfit,” said Manoj Kumar Singh, a journalist from Gorakhpur. “Moreover, the activism of Hindu Yuva Vahini has already been part of RSS’ curriculum, so there is no need of Vahini to exist. If it existed, it would pose the same tough challenge to BJP as Shiv Sena does in Maharashtra,” he added.
The BJP-led state government in UP did not even like the reorganisation of Hindu Yuva Vahini Bharat, which is why the government suspended RP Singh, the in-charge at the VVIP guest house, Lucknow for giving space to Sunil Singh and other members for the May 13 event.
“It is evident that the BJP does not want us to survive, and I do not know exactly if it is under pressure or if Maharaj Ji (Yogi) is allowing all this action against us,” said Sunil Singh.
However, the newly formed Hindu Yuva Vahini Bharat — which has no visible association with Yogi Adityanath as of yet — is gaining support from the old leaders and placeholders of the party. Also, Sunil Singh has been busy in holding meetings in wards in Gorakhpur as well as in several other districts of the eastern part of the Uttar Pradesh.
Sunil Singh was the face of Hindu Yuva Vahini who did all the groundwork necessary for the establishment of brand Hindu Yuva Vahini. “But he is not willing to own the organisation right now, rather he is continuously trying to attract the attention of Yogi Adityanath,” says one ex-member of the outfit.
The ex-member further said, “I do not think that the organisation will become as big as it was during Yogi Adityanath. It will do small-level activism, but nothing big against the will of Adityanath as he can fully stop it anytime.”
One position holder in older outfit also believes that the new development in Vahini may upset Yogi Adityanath but it is necessary to hear the people. He said, “These are the people who have given their time to the politics of Hindutva, they did their best to made Yogi Adityanath a chief minister. They indeed deserve a reward, but they got expelled.”
He further argued, “It is a pressure tactic over Maharaj Ji but he must know that he is going to lose the power which made him the king of Gorakhpur. And he must know that BJP will throw him out someday if he does not deliver on the state level.”
The new leadership emerging from the revamped organization does not agree on this claim. Ram Laxman, a 48-year-old lecturer in Inter College, Gorakhpur, was a devoted worker of Vahini since the outfit’s foundation. Laxman was in Samajwadi Party before that but was happier after joining the Vahini until his expulsion along with Sunil Singh and others. Laxman, a Dalit face of Vahini who served as General Secretary of the organisation, rose to fame recently for organising ‘Ghar Wapsi’ campaign in Gorakhpur which targeted Christians and Muslims in the suburban and rural areas of the Gorakhpur.
“To expel a general secretary and state president, you need to have votes of at least one-third members of the committee, but Yogi Ji just verbally expelled us from the party. I do not consider that as expulsion,” argues Laxman, who has been given the post of General Secretary in the HYV-Bharat as well.
The new team does not have anything good to say about Yogi Adityanath. Laxman said, “We made Yogi Ji what he is today. We made him the Chief Minister. But he pushed the Vahini and us beyond the boundaries soon after becoming chief minister. Why? Just because we asked for tickets to fight the election,” claiming that he could be MLA ten years back if Yogi would not have held back Vahini leaders to fight elections. “Yogi committed a crime. He did not let us do anything during Bypoll this year which is why he lost the election so badly.”
Laxman said, “There is no question about whether Yogi Ji needs us. We have named it “Bharat” because we have planned to take it outside of Uttar Pradesh this time, and we do not think Yogi Ji can help us in this.”
The newly formed HYV-B still searching for the answer if Yogi Adityanath will stand with the organisation or not. Many believe that to regain the hold on Gorakhpur, Yogi Adityanath will come back to the Hindu Yuva Vahini and “Bharat” team is the brainchild of Yogi Adityanath. But Dhirendra K Jha, senior journalist and author of the book “Shadow Armies: Fringe Organizations and Foot Soldiers of Hindutva”, does not think so. Jha said, “Whoever the members of Hindu Yuva Vahini members are, they basically belong to Sangh Parivar. And Yogi will not do anything, even covertly, to help such an organisation again especially at a time when the debate on radicalism is rising.”