LOSING GORAKHPUR AND PHOOLPUR IS A HUGE SETBACK FOR THE RULING BJP

The surprising and shocking results of the Gorakhpur and Phulpur parliament byelections have shaken the ruling BJP in the state as well as at the centre right from inside. It’s indeed a huge setback for the ruling BJP. This victory for the Bahujan Samajwadi Party backed SP candidates in both these seats considered to be the traditional strongholds of the saffron party earlier held for almost three decades by the UP CM Yogi Adityanath and the former state president and the present Deputy CM Maurya is an unambiguous indication that the saffron party’s popularity and the charisma of PM Modi and UP CM Yogi is on the downward slide with majority of the electorates, particularly those hailing from the minority sections, backward and down trodden classes, especially dalits are no more under the influence of saffronisation nor believing in their rhetorics of so called development and ache din repeatedly and forcefully being fed into their ears.

What seems to be the major worrisome factor for the BJP high Command after these two defeats is the fact that both these parliamentary constituencies were Saffron’s strongholds for several years and Yogi Adiyanath as well as Maurya are the incumbent CM and deputy CM of the largest state, which won 73 parliamentary seats and 325 assemblies in UP respectively during the previous national and state elections.

At the time when prime minister Narendra Modi’s charisma is at the peak compounded with Amit Shah’s outstanding organisational election winning skills, having incessantly won 21 states since 2014 putting Congress, BSP and SP including the left to immense quandry and of no where, these shameful defeats have made one thing absolutely crystal clear that all is not well for the ruling BJP lead NDA and in particular prime minister Modi.

While on the one hand the extremely popular saffron clad seer turned chief minister Yogi Adityanath is becoming more and more popular and people friendly by his, “eradicate criminalism and criminals,” from the crime infested state of UP, including making the government extremely people friendly by announcing several developmental projects and eradicating corruption, on the other hand his party’s two candidates’ loose badly against their immediate political rivals hailing from a party which was just a year ago uprooted from power in the state at the hustings.

Such downsliding trends definitely send a very wrong signal across the country for a party which is ruling at the centre as well as in 21 states of the country. In Bihar as well, out of the two results one of Jehanabad and Babua seat and the party(BJP) could make only in one seat whereas the RJD of Lalu Prasad Yadav retained its Jehanabad seat with a good margin THUS GIVING A STRAIGHT JOLT TO BJP- JDU ALLAINCE.

What makes the situation even more worse is the fact that the percentage of voting in both the parliamentary constituencies was below 40 to 45% and still the BJP lost whereas in usual cases lower percentage polling in considered to be favourable to the ruling party. This ambiguously speaks of the fact that majority of the Hindu voters have not come out for polls, clearly indicating that they were unhappy and disillusioned with the performance of the ruling party at the centre as well as the state.

However, the results also speak of the dooms day ahead for the Congress party, whose both the candidates in the Gorakhpur and Phulpur constituency even lost their security deposits similar to their zero performance in the recently concluded Tripura and Nagaland elections.

Conclusively, we can say that the results of these two byelections have made one thing absolutely unambiguous and transparent that unity of the non BJP opposition with SP and BSP as main and essential partners can put a strong and sizeable dent to the image, popularity and charisma of Narendra Modi at the national level as the minorities, dalits, backwards and the people of the backward strata of the society seem to have been totally disillusioned with them due to increasing unemployment, deteriorating agrarian sector, appaling condition of farmers and agricultural sector, sky rocketting prise rise of essential commodities, widening of gab between the haves and have nots and degenerating living standards of the rural and suburban populace of the country.

In short its the real time for full soul searching for both the BJP led NDA as well as the entire non BJP opposition of the country. What do you say friends?

SUNIL NEGI