File photo of Narendra Modi with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.
Credit: PTI Photo
Lucknow: BJP had claimed that it would win all the 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh but the results were just the opposite.
The saffron party managed to win only 32 seats while its allies won three. The I.N.D.I.A alliance, on the other hand won 44 seats surprising the political pundits.
The loss in UP came as a shock for the saffron party, whose top leaders, including prime minister Narendra Modi and UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath addressed scores of election rallies across the state.
According to the political experts, BJP was banking heavily on the Ram Temple issue and the perceived popularity of Modi and Adityanath but the results proved otherwise.
‘’Many senior state BJP leaders talked about changing the constitution if the party got 400 plus seats in the LS polls…..it sent a wrong message to the Dalits and the OBCs,’’ said veteran political analyst J P Shukla while speaking to DH here.
Shukla said that a section of the Dalit and non-Yadav OBC voters supported the I.N.D.I.A alliance in the polls as they feared that the BJP could change the Constitution and scrap reservation for them.
The loss at Ayodhya Lok Sabha seat was attributed to the sitting BJP MP Lallu Singh’s remarks that the Constitution would be changed if the BJP got more than 400 seats. ‘’The Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate in Ayodhya, who was a dalit, secured support of a large section of the Dalit community resulting in BJP’s defeat,’’ said another Lucknow based political analyst.
He said that a large section of the non-Yadav OBC voters also supported the I.N.D.I.A alliance in the LS polls. ‘’The SP fielded a large number of non-Yadav OBCs in the polls and succeeded in sending a positive message in the community,’ he added.
The OBC outfits associated with the BJP, however, failed to win in their bastions. Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP) president and UP minister Om Prakash Rajbhar failed to ensure victory of his own son in Ghosi seat while UP minister Sanjay Nishad’s son Praveen Nishad also lost the poll to the SP rival.
Another OBC leader and Apna Dal (AD), a predominantly ‘Kurmi’ outfit, leader and union minister Anupriya Patel managed to scrape through from Mirzapur in a tight contest but her party lost in Kurmi dominated Pratapgarh LS seat.
State BJP leaders said that many sitting MPs of the party had not bothered to keep in touch with the electorate in their respective LS constituencies but the party re-nominated them and as a result as many as 26 sitting MPs lost the polls.
While seven union ministers and two state ministers bit the dust in the polls, the victory margins of top BJP leaders, including Modi and union minister Rajnath Singh registered a sharp decline.
A senior state BJP leader said that the party could lose the 2027 assembly polls in UP if corrective measures were taken soon.
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Lok Sabha Elections 2024 | Narendra Modi's '400-paar' hopes faced stiff competition from Rahul Gandhi's I.N.D.I.A. in an election whose result came as a surprise. Track the latest coverage, live news, in-depth opinions, and analyses only on Deccan Herald.
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