UP BYPOLL: MODI MAGIC TO MULAYAM’S MOJO

16-9-2014 6.10PM IST

Medhaj News: Results of the bypolls in Uttar Pradesh reaffirm the faith in secular India. The BJP can mourn their losses, but for most of us Indians, it is a time to celebrate our country’s liberal spirit and rejoice in the rejection of divisive forces.

The by-election results have raised many questions on Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) poll strategy, it has also reaffirmed that Mulayam Singh Yadav and his party Samajwadi Party (SP) cannot be taken for granted in Uttar Pradesh.

Exactly four months after it swept Lok Sabha Polls, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) faced yet another by-poll jolt by losing eight of its erstwhile Assembly strongholds to the ruling Samajwadi Party (SP) here on Tuesday. The party in power at the Centre could win only three of the eleven seats that voted last week.

SP’s Tej Pratap Yadav also one the lone Lok Sabha seat Mainpuri by over 3 lakh votes where by-election was necessitated after it was vacated by party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav who retained Azamgarh.

Tej’s entry into the Parliament would mean that three generations of a political family will be sitting together in the lower house for the first time ever.

May be it was BJP’s Love jihaad hate speeches that led to its defeat. Throughout the campaign, while the BJP hit out at the Akhilesh Yadav-led state government over poor law and order and appeasement centric politics, the SP countered it with an unabashed attack on BJP accusing it for communalising the atmosphere ahead of polls.

It was a sharp contrast in the sense that while the PM Narendra Modi talks about development, leaders in UP depend on non-issues like Love Jihad, he adds.

Notwithstanding the fact that no other high profile leaders were seen during the campaign, Adityanath did what he knows the best - indulging in a series of inflammatory speeches which even attracted Election Commission’s ire.

The party which campaigned 2014 Lok Sabha elections with issues like ‘price-rise’, ‘development model’ and ‘ache din’, drifted away in Assembly elections and contested election on issues like ‘communal flares’ and ‘Love jihad’.

The loss in most of the seats will certainly make BJP rethink its strategy for 2017.