UP victory is indication of things to come in State: BJP

Should the party achieve it, Maurya – now a first-time Lok Sabha MP from Phulpur, Allahabad – could be the frontrunner for the top job in the state. Even the BJP at the height of the Ram Janambhoomi movement could not touch the 324 mark. The Congress won nine seats with NCP. In Brihanmumbai Mumbai Corporation (BMC), the richest and most prestigious corporation in the country, BJP improved its tally from 31 last time to 82 this year in a corporation of 227 seats. Exit polls released ahead of the March-11 counting predict the SAD-BJP combine, which has been ruling the state for 10 years, could be struggling to reach even double digits in the 117-member House due to multiple factors, including anti-incumbency.

If the BJP’s slogan struck a chord with the people, SP’s national president Akhilesh Yadav’s kaam bolta hai slogan came a cropper. “Will take stock of final numbers this evening”.

“Akhilesh had admitted but for the feud with the family, he would never have aligned with the Congress”. The Congress faced a tough situation in its pocket borough of Amethi and Rae Bareli.

“The party is planning to throw its heavyweights into poll campaigning”.

LOST: Mulayam Singh Yadav’s daughter-in-law Aparna Yadav trails Rita Joshi in Lucknow Cant seat.

If the strong anti-Yadav sentiment, especially among the non-Yadav backward castes, proved to be Akhilesh Yadav’s undoing, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s campaign that the Samajwadi Party favoured the minorities and discriminated against the majority community also resonated with the electorate, leading to an unprecedented Hindu consolidation. And the BJP either won or grew in strength in all of them.

– BJP ahead in 200 constituencies as per trends in UP elections 2017. Her reliance on a solid Dalit base took a battering as it is clear that a goodly section of non-Jatav votes went to BJP. BJP won 21 seats while the MGP won three seats.

Interestingly, in Deoband (Saharanpur), the BJP established its presence with a victory scored by its candidate Kunwar Brijesh Singh. “And for this very reason, BJP decided against seeking votes in the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who limited his association with Goa polls to a mere rally that he addressed in Panaji and spoke barely for 30 minutes, which must have been the shortest rally that he has ever addressed.” . This is, however, half the number of assembly segments that it won in the state in 2014, when the party swept 71 of the state’s 80 Lok Sabha seats. “A decisive win in UP will help the BJP to gain a winning momentum in upcoming polls, which will become easier with the Congress weakening”, added the BJP functionary.

Maintaining that the demonetisation issue clicked big time with the voters of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, Rai said it would be hard for the opposition to regroup against the BJP to open a front against it in the next two years, before the Lok Sabha election.