Riding on a political tie-up with Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party, the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party did the unthinkable when they convincingly thrashed the BJP in their own strongholds. Chief minster Yogi Adityanath’s backyard of Gorakhpur, where he was a Member of Parliament for five consecutive terms since 1998 before becoming the Chief Minister, crumbled. Phulpur represented by Keshav Prasad Maurya, before he became the deputy chief minister, too fell by a huge margin. Losing seats previously held by the top two in the state is a resounding slap for the BJP in Uttar Pradesh.
Can this defeat mean a vote against Prime Minister Narendra Modi or is it the coming together of the SP and BSP that spelt doom? In a political masterstroke, the SP-BSP understanding managed to bring the Dalits and the OBC voters together derailing the saffron surge. The troika of Modi-Shah- Adityanath completely undermined the reunion of SP-BSP and failed to factor in the transfer of BSP votes to the SP. The alliance comes after a gap of nearly 26 years, with the parties last putting up a combined fight in 1992.
The BJP victory bubble has burst and a defeat of this sort in UP doesn’t bode well for them in 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The UP humiliation comes close on the heels of Congress thumping the ruling BJP in Rajasthan bypoll clincing both the two Lok Sabha and one Assembly seat. However, there have been some credible victories for the BJP recently where they have decisively bagged Assam, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura and Nagaland. The current defeat will not only leave a bitter taste in the mouth of party stalwarts but will also force the party into reworking its strategies going into the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Congress found itself nowhere in the frame in UP and have been completely left out of the game. Going into the 2019 polls, the grand old party will have to rethink its strategies too, and open up to tie-ups on the lines of the Mayawati-Akhilesh alliance. Let’s not forget the Gujarat outcome where the Congress put up a brave fight and came very close to the BJP in Modi’s home turf of Gujarat. It is here where young leaders Hardik Patel, Alpesh Thakor and Jignesh Mewani gave the Congress a leg up.
On the far side of the fence, the SP-BSP combine could be a game-changer for UP politics, but what would be interesting to see is how long the renewed love lasts. Both parties will have to shun old rivalries and come together on common ground. It’s not going to be easy since both parties are big players in the state’s political arena. The stability of this arrangement will be also under watch in the forthcoming Rajya Sabha poll, where as many as seven seats are vacant. Will the UP narrative be a turning point for regional parties in States?
