Lucknow: The alliance of Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) just managed to restrain the BJP in Uttar Pradesh to a figure less than it achieved in 2014 but not good enough to stop the saffron party's surge. Even as the BJP appeared headed towards a decisive win in 57 seats of 80 Lok Sabha seats, the SP-BSP managed to lead in 22 seats by 1 pm.
Most exit polls on May 19 had predicted the BJP-led NDA to win a second term comfortably. For UP, the predictions had ranged from 65 to 33 for NDA. However, the BJP fell short of its all-time tally of 71 out of 80 achieved in 2014, while the SP-BSP alliance also failed to equal their individual tally of 2009. In 2009 election, the SP had won 23 and BSP 20, against 21 for the Congress and 5 for Rashtriya Lok Dal, leaving BJP with a mere 10 seats.
The performance of the SP-BSP indicates a tough fight as compared to the performance of opposition in states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Karnataka. In these states, the opposition Congress has managed to win 1 to 5 seats each.
The BJP victory in UP also indicated the voters disregarded caste and community differences while supporting the BJP candidates in respective areas. In fact in his election speeches Modi too kept seeking votes in his name, rather than indicating the local candidate. This strategy appeared to have paid off as voters responded to Modi’s appeal, instead of going for the local candidate.
The fact that at 1 pm, Congress president Rahul Gandhi was trailing behind Union minister Smriti Irani in Amethi by about 5,000 votes is indicative of the perseverance of Irani in nurturing the constituency and hammering on the fact of Amethi remaining a neglected constituency. Rahul, on his part, failed to highlight the advantages of the Nyay Yojana touted to be a game-changer for the Congress.
Among the remarkable wins was that of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Varanasi and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh in Lucknow. Both leaders were set to win by margins of more than 2 lakh votes in respective constituencies.
Other prominent losers included Union minister Manoj Sinha from Ghazipur, who was about 20,000 votes behind the BSP’s Afzal Ansari, brother of the jailed don Mukhtar Ansari.
The resentment against the performance of the state BJP government headed by Yogi Adityanath also did not appear to have reflected in the results. Issues of stray cattle, farmers’ neglect, law and order etc apparently did not matter much against the issues of nationalism and national security raised to a high pitch by Modi.
