With the victory in by-elections in two parliamentary seats in Uttar Pradesh, the ruling Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) has crushed Samajwadi Party in the latter’s bastion.
BJP has won the prestigious Azamgarh seat, which it could not get in the Modi wave of 2014 & 2019 while it also wrested the Rampur parliamentary constituency, which is the stronghold of SP leader Azam Khan.
In the 2019 general election, SP had won both Azamgarh and Rampur parliamentary seats. While SP Chief Akhilesh had won from Azamgarh, the Rampur seat had gone to Azam Khan. Both SP leaders had vacated these parliamentary seats after being elected to the state assembly in the recently held elections.
In the counting of the by-elections held on Sunday, BJP candidate Ghanshyam Lodhi defeated Asim Raja of SP by a margin of 42,192 votes in the Rampur parliamentary constituency. In Azamgarh, the BJP candidate and Bhojpuri film star Dinesh Lal Yadav alias Nirahua defeated Akhilesh Yadav’s cousin SP candidate Dharmendra Yadav by a margin of over 20,000 votes.
Congress had not contested any of these two seats while Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) had only fielded its candidate in Azamgarh who polled third with over 2.5 lakh votes.
Elated with the win, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said that it is the result of public welfare schemes of double engine government and due to the able guidance of PM Modi.
While the shocked SP leaders have been blaming the administration for the debacle, the overconfidence of party Chief Akhilesh is said to be the prime reason behind the defeat.
Besides the BSP fielded minority candidates, which caused a major dent in the SP’s, vote bank. Akhilesh Yadav was so overconfident about his victory that he did not even address a single meeting in both the constituencies during the month-long campaigning.
SP chief did send a few senior leaders for campaigning in Azamgarh but in Rampur, the entire thing was left upon the shoulders of Azam Khan.
According to political analysts, the BSP played spoilsport for SP candidates. In Rampur where BSP did not field its candidates, the party leaders were seen campaigning for BJP. However, in Azamgarh, the BSP candidate Shah Alam made a major dent in the minority vote bank of SP.
Not a single SP Chief bothered to rope in Congress leaders in the campaign despite the fact the latter had given a walkover on both the seats.
(To receive our E-paper on whatsapp daily, please click here. To receive it on Telegram, please click here. We permit sharing of the paper's PDF on WhatsApp and other social media platforms.)
