Issues like ‘˜Love Jihad’, statements such as made by Yogi Adityanath, Sakshi Maharaj and Maneka Gandhi harmed the party so soon.
After the success of the Bhartiya Janata Party’s student wing Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad in the DUSU elections, it was being believed that the Modi-magic was back after suffering a minor blow in Bihar and other state’s assembly bypolls.
But the table turned again.
Much to the dismay of BJP, the party has suffered another severe jolt in assembly bypolls in Uttar Pradesh, home grounds Rajasthan and Gujarat.
The Vasundhara Raje government in Rajasthan suffered a blow today when opposition Congress wrested three Assembly seats of Weir, Nasirabad and Surajgarh from the ruling BJP which could retain only the Kota seat.
BJP had won all the 25 seats at stake in the Lok Sabha polls.
In Uttar Pradesh, where 11 seats were at stake, ruling SP bagged the first seat winning Thakurdwara in Moradabad district where its candidate Nawabjaan defeated his nearest rival Rajpal Singh of BJP by a margin of 27,023 votes.
It was ahead in eight while BJP was leading in two. While BSP did not contest the bypoll, Congress and SP fielded candidates on all the 11 Assembly seats, whereas BJP contested on 10 and its ally Apna Dal on one. The current BJP President Amit Shah had scripted the sweep in UP helping the saffron party bag 71 seats while its ally Apna Dal got two out of the 80 seats in the politically crucial state.
In Gujarat, it could retain only six of the nine seats while Congress bagged two and was ahead in one. All the nine seats were earlier held by BJP and were vacated after their sitting MLAs were elected as MPs.
However, the party had a reason to smile in West Bengal where it made its debut in the state assembly on its own by winning the Basirhat Dakshin seat. The bypolls for 33 seats spread over 10 states were held on September 13.
The jolt gives a reason to the party to re-think about its strategy for assembly elections to be held in Haryana and Maharashtra next month where it hopes to oust the Congress.
While there is the old written rule that the people choose differently when it comes to assembly and Lok Sabha elections, but why do people actually do that? Maybe something changes in between and that’s what BJP must be looking at now.
Although the party is proving gradually itself on every promise that it made. But the rabid hatred that has come to the fore now through some of the faces of the party may have harmed it. The logic being the MPs who were earlier MLAs have not lost their popularity, nor has Prime Minister Narenda Modi lost his charm. On every front, the old UPA is facing criticism and new revelations every day are only consolidating the anti-Corruption votes.
So, it will be safer to say that issues like ‘Love Jihad’, statements such as made by Yogi Adityanath, Sakshi Maharaj and Maneka Gandhi harmed the party so soon.
