NEW DELHI: The unexpected reversals in two crucial
Lok Sabha bypolls in
Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday appears to have dampened party’s spirits that had soared after conquering Tripura for the first time. Even though
BJP retained its assembly seat of Bhabua in Bihar, the joint efforts of BJP and Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) could not cause a dent to Lalu Prasad’s vote bank in Araria (LS seat) and Jehanabad (assembly seat), as RJD retained both seats with impressive margins, while Prasad is in jail.
The Gorakhpur and Phulpur defeats, hit straight at the party’s core, with a mandate delivered against UP chief minister Yogi
Adityanath and deputy chief minister Keshav Maurya in their own constituencies. Adityanath’s first reaction to the verdict was “it is a lesson for us (BJP).”
In Lucknow, Siddhartha Nath Singh, a senior minister said: “We had not seen
Samajwadi Party and BSP coming together but since we have come to know of this now... and though there is still a long time (for LS polls)... we will redraw our strategy keeping this factor in mind.” He said BJP was attacking only SP during the poll campaign.
Yogi Adityanath had turned into one of BJP's main mascots who topped the list of election campaigners for the party across the country since became UP CM. Whether it was Gujarat, Tripura or Karnataka (coming up), after Prime Minister Modi, Adityanath turned out to be 'in- demand' campaigner for BJP, a Hindutva face for the saffron party who helped consolidate vote in a polarized atmosphere, acknowledge party managers.
This SP-BSP alliance, which was formed only once in the past and broke amid acrimony later, had unseated BJP after the Babri Mosque demolition in Ayodhya and now seems to have teamed up against the saffron surge that has overtaken the Hindi heartland since the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
While the final polling percentages will point to the consolidation behind the SP-BSP alliance, the low polling in UP has also been a matter of concern for BJP.
