Shiva, Ram and Vishnu: UP parties turn to deities before 2019 election

Ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the main parties in Uttar Pradesh appear to have each picked a favoured deity, judging by their leaders’ recent remarks. The BJP is sticking with Lord Ram, the Samajwadi Party has turned to Lord Vishnu and the Congress to Lord Shiva.

Congress and Lord Shiva

Congress president Rahul Gandhi, back from his Kailash Mansarovar pilgrimage, was welcomed in his Amethi constituency this week by hundreds of party workers dressed as Kanwariyas, devotees of Shiva, chanting “bol bam”. On Monday Shiva devotees presented him with a portrait of the deity at Fursatganj. Gandhi had announced the pilgrimage after a mid-air scare in April, when his plane dropped hundreds of feet during the Karnataka campaign. Party chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala had said the trip was to seek Shiva’s blessings for the country’s prosperity. Some see the episode as a Congress effort to reach out to Hindu voters.

BJP and the Ram temple

State BJP chief Mahendra Nath Pandey repeated the party’s support for a Ram temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya. On Sunday he said the temple was a centre of faith for the party and should be built in line with the law, and that the BJP was working to build it through consensus.

SP and a city for Vishnu

SP president Akhilesh Yadav has pledged that an SP government would build a city named after Lord Vishnu, of whom Ram and Krishna are regarded as incarnations, on 2,000 acres near the Lion Safari in Etawah. It would include a grand temple modelled on Cambodia’s Angkor Wat, and he said experts would be sent to Cambodia to plan it as a centre of ancient culture and learning. Angkor Wat, among the world’s largest religious monuments, was first a Hindu temple to Vishnu before becoming a Buddhist shrine.

Uttar Pradesh elects 80 MPs. In 2014 the state gave the BJP 71 seats and its ally Apna Dal two, while the SP won five and the Congress two.

What happened next

The BJP won 303 of 543 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. The Supreme Court delivered its Ayodhya judgment on 9 November 2019, and the Ram temple in Ayodhya was consecrated on 22 January 2024.

See also: Samajwadi Party and Indian National Congress.

Originally published on 28 September 2018. Rewritten on 9 October 2026.

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