It doesn’t need rocket science to say that the BJP’s 3-0 loss in three Lok Sabha by-polls – Gorakhpur and Phulpur in Uttar Pradesh, and Araria in Bihar – is an alarm bell for the saffron party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead of the next general elections, due by May 2019. The alliance was formed with the explicit aim of stalling the BJP’s electoral juggernaut. The two parties together polled 40.8 per cent votes.
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Celebrations broke out in many parts of the state as Samajwadi Party cadres smeared each other with Holi colours and raised slogans in favour of the BSP-SP alliance.
In Phulpur, SP’s Nagendra Pratap Singh Patel trounced his BJP rival Kaushlendra Singh Patel by 59,613 votes, while in Gorakhpur, SP’s Pravin Nishad defeated BJP’s Upendra Shukla by 21,881 votes.
He also said the Congress was keen to rebuild the party in UP but added it would “not happen overnight”.
“Lok Sabha bypolls in Uttar Pradesh always give political messages”.
How did BJP lose these two seats? Phulpur was won the Uttar Pradesh’s deputy chief minister, Keshav Prasad Maurya in 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
In a press conference on March 4, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath was asked about disconnection between leaders and workers within party, but he declined to answer, saying that workers were active and it is reflected the way the party won Sikandara bye-election as well as Urban Local body polls. “Our defeat was a foregone conclusion There has been no administration or governance in the last one year of Yogi rule”.
The BJP’s Rinki Pandey won by over 15,490 votes over Sambhu Patel of the Congress, an RJD ally, in Bhabhua. As a top Congress leader underlined, “at Sonia Gandhi’s dinner, the collective prayer was for the victory of the Samajwadi candidate, and not for the Congress nominee”. “It also shows us how the BJP has paid a price for its overconfidence”, Badri Narayan, professor at the School of Social Sciences at JNU.
“When the candidates were declared, the SP, BSP and Congress were not together…they had not joined hands then”. No tactical mistake in fighting the two elections alone. Her new-found bonhomie with the Akhilesh Yadav-led SP should also improve prospects for her Rajya Sabha seat.
The SP chief claimed the “BJP’s defeat would have been by a margin of lakhs had the elections been held through ballot paper”.
The victor polled 342,796 votes, while the BJP candidate got 283,183 votes.
After sweeping the Lok Sabha elections in 2014 and the assembly polls a year ago, BJP faced formidable rivals in Uttar Pradesh in the form of Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party who stitched a last-minute alliance. UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who tirelessly campaigned for his party’s candidates, said that he will look into the shortcomings that played a role in the party’s defeat. Congress candidates lost deposits in both Gorakhpur and Phulpur and couldn’t open its account in Bihar.
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The by-elections in both states for all five seats were held on Sunday. You have seen how they barely survived in Gujarat and got defeated in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan bypolls. “People have made up their mind to show them the door”.
