New Delhi: Have the Samajwadi Party and the BSP committed hara-kiri by keeping the Congress out of the electoral loop? The results of the ‘Mood of the Nation’ poll conducted by India Today-Karvy Insights reveal that if the SP, the BSP, the Congress, the Rashtriya Lok Dal and ‘others’ come together as a unit against the BJP, it would deliver a massive jolt to the latter.
From a paltry five seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the tally of this rainbow combine could increase to 75 this time, the pre-condition being that the units must fight in tandem. A total of 2,478 people were polled in Uttar Pradesh for this survey. The BJP and its ally Apna Dal won 73 of the 80 seats in UP in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Their combined vote share was 43.3 per cent. The ground reality could be very different this time.
Pitted against a united opposition, even loosely knit, the seats that the BJP-Apna Dal combine is likely to win this time will plummet from 73 to 5 – a fall of 93 per cent. Sure, the Congress is not part of the combine yet. But Priyanka’s entry could act as a catalyst and goad the SP and the BSP into having truck with Rahul Gandhi.
That could be a game-changer, not just in the state, but at the Centre, too. Interestingly, without Congress, the SP-BSP combine is capable of scaling down the BJP+ tally to 18 seats in Uttar Pradesh. The survey was done just before Priyanka’s debut was officially announced. She is now the X factor in politics.