Uttar Pradesh by-poll results: BJP’s massive defeat will cut Yogi Adityanath down to size
When Yogi Adityanath set out to campaign for the by-election to Gorakhpur Lok Sabha seat, which he and his guru Mahant Awaidyanath had held for nearly three decades, the Uttar Pradesh chief minister may not have imagined even in his wildest dreams that his nominee would suffer a humiliating defeat in his own bastion.
That this shock would come precisely five days before he was all set to celebrate the completion of his first year in office, was equally unimaginable.
Together with the most unexpected defeat in Gorakhpur, what further jolted the ruling BJP was the party’s devastation in the Phulpur Lok Sabha constituency held by Yogi’s deputy Keshav Prasad Maurya. The by-polls to the two seats were necessitated after the two stepped down from the Lok Sabha to join the state legislative council (Vidhan Parishad).
It was the last-minute understanding between the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) that actually gave the BJP a run for its money. The saffron brigade’s hopes were dashed as BSP supremo Mayawati, who as a rule prefers to keep her party out of by-polls, succeeded remarkably in ensuring transfer of party’s committed vote to the SP nominee over a span of just eight days.
Other factors, including the overall functioning of the Yogi government, were bound to have come into play. And foremost of these could be the much-hyped and oft-repeated claims of the government on "development".
Significantly, even the two pockets of Gorakhpur and Phulpur received nothing other than lip service in the name of development . The government’s failure to bring any visible change to the lives of people set in disillusionment among the electorate, whose turnout remained extremely low in both places.
Former chief minister and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav likes to believe that demonetisation and GST too have a role to play in BJP’s rout in the by-elections.
It was not just Yogi and his prestige that was at stake, but also that of the Gorakhnath temple, whose sublime following of millions was responsible for getting Yogi five consecutive terms in the Lok Sabha from Gorakhpur.
His guru Mahant Awaidyanath held the seat for three terms before that. Yogi had scored a record margin of more than three lakh votes in 2014.
However, what changed the game was the sudden bonhomie between archrivals SP and BSP - something that the BJP was not prepared for.
The hostility between the SP and the BSP was too blatant, deep-rooted and personal. So much so that Mayawati was openly averse even to any suggestion of shaking hands with Mulayam Singh Yadav, ever since the SP patriarch (as the then UP CM) unleashed terror on her during the infamous state guesthouse attack way back in 1995.
However , political compulsions led Akhilesh Yadav, in his new avatar as SP chief, to send feelers for a rapprochement, which eventually worked out at the eleventh hour of the by-polls.
The BJP could not foresee that, and even after it was formally announced, the saffron brigade took it a bit too lightly with top BJP leaders only making mockery of the alliance.
While the BJP’s win in Phulpur was doubted right from day one when by-elections to the two Lok Sabha seats were announced last month, a clean sweep in Gorakhpur was a foregone conclusion by insiders and the Opposition alike .
Perhaps, it was the arrogance of power that gave both (Adityanath and Maurya) the overconfidence of ensuring a clean sweep for their respective nominees, Upendra Dutt Shukla (Gorakhpur) and Kaushlendra Nath Patel (Phulpur), who lost miserably.
A political upstart , who began his career in BJP only as late as 2012, Maurya had won the seat in the Modi wave of 2014, but he managed to win the confidence of BJP chief Amit Shah, who anointed him as UP BJP president.
And when the BJP bagged a record number of 324 seats in the 403-member state Assembly in 2017, he began to attribute the party’s victory to himself. His assertion that the massive win was a consequence of his efforts to grab the larger chunk of the backward caste votes , led him to demand the top job.
It was only after a big tug-of-war that he agreed to settle for the deputy chief minister’s position. But he could never compromise with his position and fissures between him and the chief minister continued to manifest all along.
Now, the SP-BSP alliance clearly marks the return of the caste-based vote base that Narendra Modi had managed to demolish in 2014, when it was just brand Modi for which people chose to cut across caste lines.
Sure enough, the continuance of this alliance could pose a major challenge to the BJP and its ally Apna Dal. Together, the two had won 73 out of 80 Lok Sabha seats (BJP: 71; Apna Dal: 2) in UP in 2014.
Although the Congress had chosen to stay out of the alliance in the by-poll, political prudence may eventually lead Rahul Gandhi too to pitch in for a larger "mahagathbandhan" on the lines of the Nitish-Lalu grand alliance in Bihar in 2015, for 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Yogi Adityanath’s overconfidence led him to repeatedly describe these two by-polls as a “dress rehearsal” for the 2019 general elections. He was also known to be busy proclaiming that he would ensure a higher victory margin that his own this time.
However, considering that 2019 would determine Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s political destiny, would Yogi continue to call this a "dress rehearsal"?
Also, whether the saffron-clad chief minister would continue to remain the party’s national star campaigner - who was being sent all the way to Karnataka, Kerala and the Northeast - is now a million dollar question.
Also read: BJP sees humiliating defeat in Gorakhpur and Phulpur by-polls: 10 takeaways