On July 14, in a packed hall in Lucknow, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) held its first state executive meeting since the 2024 Lok Sabha election results yanked away half the ground under its feet in Uttar Pradesh. Soil subsidence on that scale was bound to set off an inquisition. Who was to blame? The answer depends entirely on who’s doing the asking, with self-exoneration built into that act itself. As suggestion and innuendo filled the air, deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya made the opening verbal salvo: “Sangathan sarkar se bada tha, bada hai aur bada rahega (the party organisation was larger than the government, is larger and will continue to remain larger).”
