Riding high on its plank of nationalism, Hindutva and a perceived improvement in the law and order, BJP registered a massive win in the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls bagging 272 seats in a house of 403 with its alliance partners Apna Dal and Nishad Party and scripted history by becoming the first party to win a second term in the state after 35 years.
The Samajwadi Party (SP), BJP's main challenger, managed to win 127 seats with the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), its alliance partner.
BSP and Congress were completely decimated in the polls, which turned out to be a bipolar contest between the BJP and SP, and recorded their lowest numbers in the polls winning one and two seats respectively.
Addressing party workers later chief minister Yogi Adityanath credited his party's resounding win to "nationalism, faith, welfare schemes for the poor, law and order" and 'development' and the leadership of prime minister Narendra Modi. "The victory is the result of our hard work during the Coronavirus pandemic, dynamic leadership of Modiji, schemes for the poor, nationalism and faith," he remarked.
Adityanath, with this win, broke the 'Noida jinx'. Adityanath, who was in the fray from Gorakhpur City seat, defeated his nearest SP rival by over 50,000 seats.
While a majority of the ministers of the Adityanath cabinet retained their seats, a few, including Education Minister Satish Chandra Dwivedi and Minister for Cane Suresh Rana, were defeated by their rivals. Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, who had contested from Sirathu seat, was trailing his nearest SP rival. UP minister Neelkanth Tiwari, who was in the fray from Varanasi South seat, where the Kashi Vishwanath Temple was situated, lost to his SP rival Kishen Dixit. Varanasi was the Lok Sabha constituency of Modi.
SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, who was in the fray from Karhal seat, defeated his nearest BJP rival and union minister S.P.Singh Baghel by over 55 thousand votes. Akhilesh's alliance partner Om Prakash Rajbhar, the president of Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP), won from Zahoorabad seat in Ghazipur district.
Former UP minister Swami Prasad Maurya, who had resigned from the BJP days before the polls and joined the SP, lost from Fazil Nagar seat by a margin of over 25,000 votes. Another former minister Dharam Singh Saini, who too had resigned with Maurya, was also defeated.
Congress suffered a major setback in the polls with recording its lowest tally in the state's electoral history. The grand old party, which contested all the 403 seats, could win only two seats and was wiped out even its bastions of Raebareli and Amethi. UP Congress president Ajai Kumar Lallu also lost from Tamkuhi Raj constituency.
BSP was also decimated in the polls and recorded its lowest tally in the state. The party, which had gone solo in the polls, could win only one seat. It could not win any of the reserved seats in the polls.
An analysis of the results showed that the BJP, contrary to the perceptions in the wake of the farmers' agitation, won 51 of the 76 seats in the 'Jat' dominated western region. The saffron party also swept the Bundelkhand region winning 17 of the 19 seats. Its performance in the central UP region was also impressive as it won 82 of the 114 seats in the region. In Poorvanchal (Eastern) region also the BJP managed to win 87 of the 142 seats.
The saffron party also swept its strongholds of Agra, Mathura, Ghaziabad, Noida, Jhansi, Prayagraj, Varanasi and Ayodhya districts. Although the BJP, which had won 325 seats in the 2017 assembly polls in the state, saw its tally coming by around 50 seats, its vote percentage registered an increase of around three per cent. In the 2017 polls, BJP had secured a little over 39 per cent votes. In this election, it rose to over 42 per cent.
The saffron party scripted history by becoming the only party to win a second consecutive term after 1986 as the state had witnessed coalition governments until 2007. BSP ruled the state between 2007-2012 while SP formed the government after the 2012 polls. BJP had won a massive mandate in 2017.
Ecstatic BJP workers, bathed in colours of different kinds, danced to the beating of the drums as they made their way to the BJP headquarters here to celebrate the victory and listen to the speeches by the senior leaders.
Many BJP workers reached the party office in bulldozers (JCB), which had become a symbol for both Adityanath and SP president Akhilesh Yadav in the elections. Akhilesh had dubbed Adityanath as 'Bulldozer Baba' after the demolition of the buildings owned by alleged mafia elements in the state.
Check out DH's latest videos: