The BJP juggernaut continues to roll on, with the saffron party coming back to power in four of the five states where Assembly elections were held. The stunning victory in Uttar Pradesh, where the party battled the aftermath of the farmers' protests and a general anti-incumbency, would rank the sweetest.
The 255 seats it won is a climbdown from its previous tally of 312 seats in 2017 but it can gloat over the fact that the party's vote share increased from 39.67% in 2017 to 41.6% in 2022.
The BJP is coming back to power with a huge majority under Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who will be the second chief minister in the state’s history to win a consecutive term. He is also the first chief minister to return to power after completing a full tenure of five years.
Party leaders said that the improved law and order situation as well as 16 crore beneficiaries worked its magic. Union minister for women and child development Smriti Irani said that women were a significant factor in the party’s win in the state.
“It is no easy task to distribute food grains twice monthly for 19 months," Irani told DH. "More than 2 crore women had Rs 500 deposited in their accounts for the first time. Under the Ayushman Bharat scheme, 6 crore women have come forward to screen for cervix and breast cancer, this is unprecedented. They say that the women's vote is a silent one. On the contrary women had resoundingly entrusted their faith in the BJP."
Leaders said that beneficiaries of several government schemes, including free ration, toilets, gas connections as well as homes which are registered in the names of women, voted in the party’s favour. Another key concern was electricity.
In a year where income took a hit after the Covid-19 pandemic, said party’s national spokesperson KK Sharma, these emoluments meant a lot.
“These beneficiaries are apart from those who got free Covid vaccinations. The Opposition underestimated this factor and they could not understand the sentiment on the ground,” said Sharma.
The farmers’ protest could not garner votes for the Opposition as the Samajwadi Party-Rashtriya Janata Dal combine hoped to. Sharma says that the protests were limited to only one and a half states. “Several farmers in the state were registered under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi and they had Rs 6,000 deposited in their accounts,” said Sharma.
As it retains governments in four states, the BJP is in power in 18 states and UTs, and in eight of these states the party is in power on its own.
In Uttarakhand, the BJP’s win has been marred by the loss of sitting chief minister Pushkar Dhami. Its vote share, too, came down from 46.5% in 2017, when it won 57 of the state’s 70 seats, to 44.3% now.
But the BJP still managed to win 47 seats in the state against the Congress. In Goa, the party’s vote share marginally increased from 32.5% in 2017 to 33.3% this year. The party has won 20 seats in the 40-member assembly, which is a significant increase from the 13 seats it won in 2017.
In Manipur, the BJP is coming back to power with a vote share of 37.8% which is a marginal increase from the 36.3% it won in 2017. What makes BJP’s win in Manipur significant is its clear majority, a feat it has repeated only in Arunachal Pradesh where leaders of the PPA joined the party.
BJP national spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain says that the best is yet to come for the BJP. “Political pundits had written us off, they said that we can’t come back to power in Goa, Manipur and Uttarakhand. This is a very significant win for us. The Congress ruled for more than five decades, but this is BJP’s decade,” Hussain said.
The party’s only loss is in Punjab where it had fought elections in the past with its alliance partner Shiromani Akali Dal, but which left the NDA months ahead of the elections. “We need to work this term. In five years, there will be a BJP government in Punjab as well,” Sharma said.
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