UP by-polls result: Twitter pundits on BJP's embarrassing defeat in Adityanath's turf

Having recently won a spectacular victory in the Tripura Assembly polls — which many dubbed the beginning of a saffron wave in the northeast — the Bharatiya Janata Party’s sorry show in today's Uttar Pradesh by-polls serves as not only a shocker, but also a reminder for the ruling party that change alone is constant. Once again, the BJP has learnt that an alliance united against it can throw a spanner in the works.

This time, a temporary Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party coalition has paid off; they successfully managed to shake BJP’s strong footing in Uttar Pradesh, a state where the BJP won a landslide victory in 2017. SP's Nagendra Pratap Singh Patel won Phulpur (a seat vacated by deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya) with a margin of more than 59,000 votes defeating his nearest rival Kaushlendra Singh Patel of the BJP.  

The bigger loss for BJP, however, came in the form of Gorakhpur — CM Yogi Adityanath’s recently vacated seat — where SP’s Praveen Nishad defeated BJP's Upendra Dutt Shukla by 21,881 votes.

Is this by-poll indicative of a shift? Here’s what the political pundits on Twitter have to say:

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)

6)

7)

8)

9)

10) 

Also read: 20,00,000 in Delhi to lose livelihoods after sealing drive: Blame Congress, AAP and BJP