Yogi Adityanath scores big as NDA wins 7 seats, SP 2 in U.P. byelections

BJP workers celebrating the victory at the party headquarters in 
Lucknow on Saturday.
| Photo Credit: SANDEEP SAXENA

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s slogan of “Batenge toh katenge (Divided we perish)” prevailed over the ‘Pichda, Dalit, Alpasankhyak’ or PDA pitch of the Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh as the ruling party secured six out of nine seats in the high-stakes bypolls in Uttar Pradesh.

The BJP retained Ghaziabad Sadar, Khair (reserved), Phulpur, and Majhawan, wrested Kundarki and Katehari from the SP, and its ally Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) preserved Meerapur after joining the National Democratic Alliance.

The SP maintained its hold over the family fief of Karhal and Sisamau but its victory margin in both the seats has come down considerably.

While the U.P. CM described the results as the electorate’s “stamp on the double-engine government’s commitment to providing security and development”, SP president Akhilesh Yadav accused the BJP government of making “election synonymous with corruption” by misusing administrative machinery to rig the polls in its favour.

Hindutva icon

Four months after the BJP’s below-par performance in the Lok Sabha poll in the State, the results are expected to silence the growing dissonance in the BJP and consolidate Mr. Adityanath’s position as the Hindutva icon. The CM, who held 37 public meetings in 13 days in his State as well as Maharashtra and Jharkhand, has emerged as a strong pan-India force. He worked to bury the anti-north Indian sentiment in Maharashtra politics by invoking Shivaji’s great escape from the Mughal hold in Agra, reflected in the grand Chhath Puja celebrations in Mumbai.

Coming up with a versatile slogan that evoked different meanings in different constituencies, political observers felt that by invoking “Batenge toh katenge”, Mr. Adityanath not only sought Hindu consolidation but also addressed dissenters within the party and when the RSS echoed his line and PM Narendra Modi responded with “Ek hain toh safe hain”, it sent an impression among the cadre that the ‘double engine’ was back on track.

Interestingly, both alliances described each other’s agenda as negative politics. While the BJP dressed an old majoritarian anxiety into a new slogan, the INDIA alliance repeated its fears over the Constitution and reservation, a theme many felt held limited resonance in the byelection.

After the initial burst of unity, Congress workers remained absent from the ground and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi didn’t share the stage with Mr. Yadav. The results indicate that the SP didn’t recognise the role the Congress played in mobilising Muslim and Dalit votes towards the INDIA bloc during the Lok Sabha election.

Kundarki surprise

The most shocking result for the SP has come in Kundarki. Party candidate Md. Rizwan, who demanded a repoll, lost his deposit in a seat with a 65% Muslim population and 57.7% voting, the highest of the nine constituencies.

Senior party leader Muneer Ahmad said no one can digest that 80% of the electorate voted for the BJP candidate when a dozen Muslim candidates were in the fray. “It proved our party’s charges against the BJP government of using the administrative machinery to stop or discourage a community from exercising its franchise and indulge in bogus voting,” Mr. Ahmad alleged.

The BJP described its win in Kundarki as the “victory of nationalist agenda” and Mr. Adityanath suggested that a section of voters remembered their ancestral lineage and cultural heritage while voting. While BJP candidate Thakur Ramveer Singh did reach out to Muslim Rajputs in the constituency by accepting skullcap and keffiyeh from local Muslim leaders, many political commentators felt the result defied psephological logic and demanded the attention of the Election Commission.

Riding on the sympathy wave for spouse Irfan Solanki, SP candidate Naseem Solank, who also accused the police of violating norms, scraped through in Sisamau. However, in Meerapur, another seat where SP asked for a repoll, its candidate Sumbul Rana lost to the RLD’s Mithlesh Pal.

The fact that Pasmanda Muslim candidates of AIMIM and Azad Samaj Party (Kanshiram) secured 22,661 and 18,869 votes respectively contributed to her defeat.

In a roller-coaster contest in Katehari, SP’s Shobhavati Verma  lost to BJP’s Dharmraj Nishad, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate Amit Verma secured more than 41,000 votes contributing to Ms. Verma’s defeat. Similarly, in Manjhwan the margin of victory between BJP’s Shuchismita Maurya and SP’s Jyoti Bind was 4,922 votes while BSP candidate Deepak Tiwari secured 34,927 votes. Meanwhile, RLD proved its worth for the BJP. It not only retained Meerapur but also showed its worth in Khair where its Handpump effectively watered Lotus to victory.)