New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi leads his party BJP to an unprecedented absolute majority in the country’s most populous state.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) threw aside the Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance and also the other traditional regional party – Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party – to emerge with more than 300 seats in the 403-constituency Assembly.
Counting started sharp at 8 am Saturday to call Assembly elections in UP, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Manipur and Goa.
The BJP is also set to form the government in Uttarakhand, marching far ahead of incumbent Congress which was racked by infighting while in governance last term.
There was some cheer for Congress which won Punjab, defeating the incumbent SAD-BJP coalition that has ruled the state for ten years. Surprisingly, and belying expectations, Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party was not doing too well, coming a poor second to the Congress.
In Goa, the Congress has taken a lead over the BJP but it is still too close a call. AAP has been decimated in Goa.
The Congress is also leading in Manipur where three-time Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh has defeated political debutante and activist Irom Sharmila who got only 51 votes. Close on its heels is the BJP, having made a dent in this traditional Congress base this term. A hung Assembly may stop the Congress’ quest for a fourth term in power.
The Samajwadi Party dug its own grave last year in the middle of an intense power struggle with party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav and brother Shivpal on one side and son and chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and cousin Ramgopal on the other.
The two factions sacked each other from party posts in a free-for-all earlier this year, even fighting for the party symbolm before Akhilesh decided to tie up with the Congress to thwart a resurgent BJP. That obviously did not go down too well with the grassroots as the results now show.
There have been loud grumblings from SP leaders that Congress candidates had contested against the Samajwadi Party in certain constituencies paving the way for the BJP to take advantage of the vote divide.
Party leaders have said the alliance may have helped the Congress but it certainly did not do anything for the SP.
A good show by the BJP in Uttar Pradesh is being seen as a reaffirmation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s standing among the masses and popular endorsement of his agenda, especially demonetisation.
This victory will also boost BJP president Amit Shah’s authority as capturing power in Uttar Pradesh has been a dream project for the party after it was reduced to the margins of the state’s politics that it ruled for much of the 1990s.
Shah has been seen as the architect of the party’s outreach to various social groups, mostly OBCs and sections of Dalits.
This big BJP win will also boost its strength in the Rajya Sabha where the Congress-led opposition has been able to block the government’s legislative agenda due to its numerical superiority.
The Congress, on the other hand, has sought to insulate party vice president Rahul Gandhi from any negative fallout saying poll results are never a referendum on any single individual.
Uttar Pradesh:
The most riveting contest was in Uttar Pradesh, which is seen as a gamechanger and a virtual referendum on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity and his reforms agenda.
In 2012, the Samajwadi Party swept to power defeating incumbent chief minister Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party which had got an absolute majority in the previous elections.
SP had won 224 seats of the 401 it contested, garnering a vote share of 29.15 per cent with an upswing of 3.72 per cent over the last elections.
The BSP had got 80 seats with a 25.91 per cent vote share. The BJP managed 47 seats with 15 per cent vote share, while the Congress got 28 seats with 11.63 per cent vote share.
In the 2014 general elections, however, the BJP captured Uttar Pradesh, winning 71 of the 80 parliamentary seats. It got a vote share of 42.30 per cent. The SP managed only 5 seats with a vote share of 22.2 per cent, the Congress and Apna Dal got 2 seats each while Mayawati was left high and dry.
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