Despite BJP dominance, bypoll results bring some cheer for Opposition in UP - Hindustan Times
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Despite BJP dominance, bypoll results bring some cheer for Opposition in UP

Hindustan Times, Lucknow | By
Oct 25, 2019 07:33 AM IST

More worrying for the BJP was the fact that even the Congress, which is in the midst of a revamp under its new state chief Ajay Kumar ‘Lallu’, fared well in several seats like Govindnagar in Kanpur and Gangoh in Saharanpur where the party candidates came second, pushing the SP and BSP behind.

The results of the bypolls to 11 assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh on Thursday brought some cheer for an otherwise beleaguered opposition which, after a string of electoral setbacks, embarrassed the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in the Zaidpur reserved seat in Barbanki and firmly hung on to Rampur and Jalalpur.

More worrying for the BJP was the fact that even the Congress, which is in the midst of a revamp under its new state chief Ajay Kumar ‘Lallu’, fared well in several seats in bypolls.(PTI photo)
More worrying for the BJP was the fact that even the Congress, which is in the midst of a revamp under its new state chief Ajay Kumar ‘Lallu’, fared well in several seats in bypolls.(PTI photo)

More worrying for the BJP was the fact that even the Congress, which is in the midst of a revamp under its new state chief Ajay Kumar ‘Lallu’, fared well in several seats like Govindnagar in Kanpur and Gangoh in Saharanpur where the party candidates came second, pushing the SP and BSP behind.

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The BJP’s vote share registered a dip nearly all the seats, barring Rampur where its vote share went up despite the party’s loss there.

In Gangoh, the Congress alleged foul play. Party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra claimed a win and demanded an ‘impartial’ inquiry into the result by the Election Commission.

Priyanka’s attack led to chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s advisor Mrityunjay Kumar targeting the Congress leader for getting ‘desperate in a loss.’

Adityanath, who had campaigned for the BJP in all 11 seats, congratulated all the winners and hoped all of them would carry forward Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s motto of ‘sabka saath, sabka vikas aur sabka vishwas.’

“These bypolls have something for all the parties. The BJP can well claim the gains that opposition has made were notional and won’t affect its dominant position. The opposition would see the bypolls as a ray of hope ahead of the 2022 assembly polls,” said Athar Siddiqui of the Centre from Objective Research and Development.

Of the 11 assembly seats that went to the bypolls, the BJP held eight, while one was won by its ally Apna Dal in 2017 UP polls. The SP and the BSP had won their citadels in Rampur and Jalalpur in the 2017 UP polls when Congress and Samajwadi Party had inked a pact. The bypolls were caused when sitting lawmakers in 10 of the 11 seats (in Ghosi the bypoll was required after sitting BJP lawmaker Phagu Chauhan was made governor of Bihar), got elected to the Lok Sabha in 2019 LS polls which the SP and the BSP contested together in UP. This was the first independent test of all major political players after the 2014 Lok Sabha polls in which the opposition parties made an impact despite the BJP engineering massive defections.

“Despite engineering defections in the opposition camps and trying every trick in the book to thwart the Samajwadi Party, the SP’s performance definitely would make BJP realise who has the people’s support. The SP will oust the BJP in 2022 assembly polls. These bypolls are also a lesson for those who had accused the SP of not being able to transfer their votes,” said Samajwadi Party leader IP Singh.

The defections were a mixed bag. It appeared to have helped the party in Pratapgarh where, in the middle of the bypoll campaign, BJP got three-time Congress MP Rajkumari Ratna Singh to switch loyalties. However, in Barabanki’s Zaidpur reserved seat, the strategy didn’t work.

Or, for that matter in the Rampur assembly seat, where bypolls were caused after nine-time lawmaker Azam Khan was elected the Lok Sabha. Barring 1996, Azam Khan won the assembly seat since 1989. This was one seat the BJP was desperate to win to breach the Muslim majority bastion of the SP. But Khan’s wife Tazeen Fatima bagged the seat. Rampur MP Azam Khan who has had more than 80 FIRs filed against him, including cattle theft, had cried before people on more than four occasions. In Jalalpur, a BSP bastion, the SP had done well.

BJP’s Naveen Srivastava said, “We are a democratic party which would accept whatever the people say. Despite our overwhelming majority, we haven’t been haughty and boastful. A win in one or two seats, and the opposition has started jumping. This shows their mindset and their desperation.”

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  • ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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    Manish Chandra Pandey is a Lucknow-based Senior Assistant Editor with Hindustan Times’ political bureau in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. Along with political reporting, he loves to write offbeat/human interest stories that people connect with. Manish also covers departments. He feels he has a lot to learn not just from veterans, but also from newcomers who make him realise that there is so much to unlearn.

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