By Dr. Gyan Pathak
The past six months did not go well for the BJP in Uttar Pradesh politics. On January 22, the State BJP president has set the target to win all 80 Lok Sabha seats in 2024 general election, but now only after six months, the State Unit of the party has identified as many as 18 Lok Sabha seats in the “Red zone” for the party, out of those 4 are presently BJP seats. However, the emerging political conditions in the state are still unclear about the comparative prospects of the opposition Samajwadi Party, BSP, and the Congress with no unity visible so far.
18 Lok Sabha seats in the “Red Zone” as per the assessment of the State BJP unit is significant, since the party had won only 62 Lok Sabha seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, out of 80, exactly corresponding the 18 seats they had lost. However, in the new assessment, one needs to take note that 2 seats were won by BJP’s alliance partner Apna Dal. If we just exclude these two seats of their alliance partner, in BJP’s own assessment their prospects are reduced to only 60 seats. Moreover, the 2 seats of their alliance partner have also been threatened, indicating a very tough political batter ahead for the BJP in 2024 Lok Sabha election.
It was only on May 29, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has asked the BJP workers to target winning 75 seats in the state. BJP’s Chanakya Amit Shah has reportedly firmly asked the state BJP to improve its performance from 62 seats in 2019, to at least 70 seats in 2024. All these are indicative of the shaking confidence of winning more seats, or even retaining the present ones, among the BJP leaders in the last six months, when they had set the target of winning all 80 seats from the state. More significant is that even the very high pitch of propaganda of the BJP could not succeed in preventing the shaking confidence among the rank and file of the BJP in Uttar Pradesh, of course, not without reasons.
First of all, the political clout of the BJP among the voters in Uttar Pradesh has been on the decline since 2014, when it had astonished the country by winning 71 seats. However, it could win only 62 seats in 2019. The decline of the political clout of the BJP has also been evident in the Vidhan Sabha elections of the state. BJP had won 309 seats in 2017, but were reduced to 255 seats in 2022.
On the other hand, political fortune of the opposition parties got better when they won 16 seats in 2019 as against 7 in the 2014 Lok Sabha election. Samajwadi Party could not improve its tall from 5 seats the party had won in 2014. It could win only 5 seats in 2019 too. However, BSP had improved its tally from 0 to 10, and the Congress declined from 2 to 1 seat.
Moreover, political fortune of the opposition got even better in Vidhan Sabha election 2022. SP had won 47 seats in the 2017 Vidhan Sabha election while BSP had won 17, and the Congress 7. In 2022, SP’s performance was impressive when it won 111 seats, while BSP reduced to 1 and Congress 2 seats.
If the pattern continues one year after in 2024 general elections, BJP could win only about 51 seats while SP could be able to win at least 20 seats. This prospect has shaken the confidence of the BJP leadership. BJP’s woes do not end here. Even in the recent urban local bodies’ elections held in May 2023, BJP’s performance was not so well as it was made by the BJP propaganda machine. They raised their pitch on their winning all 17 mayoral seats in the state’s municipal corporations, while concealing the fact that they could win only 89 Nagar Palika Parishads out of 199, and only 191 Nagar Panchayats out of 544.
It is well known fact, that BJP has traditionally upper hand in municipal corporation areas, and hence winning all 17 mayoral post is not going to improve its position further. Rather, it has reasons to be concerned, since the party had to face the rising influence of the opposition in BJP’s political forte. SP could win 35 Nagarpalika Parishad seats and 79 Nagar Panchayat seats as against 89 and 191 of BJP respectively. Not only that, BSP won 16 Nagar Palika seats while Congress could win only 4. As for Nagar Panchayat, BSP won 37 and Congress 4 seats. Large number of independents have also won in Nagarpalikas (41 seats) and Nagar panchayats (195 seats) showing overall disenchantment of voters against the BJP rule.
If the voting pattern continues, BJP is heading for a substantial additional loss during the Lok Sabha election 2024, and would not be able to win even 51 seats that have been projected on the basis of 2022 Vidhan Sabha election in the state. Urban local bodies’ election results indicate a reduction of another 8 seats, reducing BJP’s prospect of winning in only 43 seats.
It is not surprising that BJP has launched massive month-long public outreach programme from May 30, 2023, just within three weeks after the urban bodies’ election results. In fact, about one-fourth of the BJP MPs failed in securing win of the party candidates in Nagarpalikas and Nagar Panchayats, which has been taken seriously by the Central BJP leadership.
As of now, BJP has an upper hand over the opposition, but much below the level of 2014 or 2019. On the other hand, Opposition’s political prospects have brightened a little, but they need very hard work to capitalize over the emerging situation on the ground, apart from posing a untied fight to Modi led BJP. (IPA Service)
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