New Delhi: After facing a debacle in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP-led NDA secured a decisive 7-2 victory in the assembly bypolls, showing clear signs of its fast return to the recovery path in the politically crucial state.
While the bypoll results will also strengthen chief minister Yogi Adityanath‘s stature within the BJP, they reflect the failure of Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav to maintain the momentum his party gained in the Lok Sabha polls six months ago.
The SP could retain only two seats – Karhal (Mainpuri) and Sisamau (Kanpur) – while the BJP registered its victory in the six: Khair, Ghaziabad, Majhawa, Phulpur, Katehari and Kundarki. NDA constituent Rashtriya Lok Dal won in Meerapur.
BJP’s victory is surprising in Moradabad’s Kundarki, a constituency where more than 65% of the voters are Muslims. The party won the seat after more than three decades. BJP’s Ramveer Singh, the only Hindu among the 12 candidates, won by a massive margin of more than 1,63,000 votes over his nearest rival Mohammad Rizwan of the SP.
The BJP snatched Katehari from the SP, which lost the seat for the first time since 2012. This seat was vacated after Lalji Verma was elected to the Lok Sabha from the Ambedkarnagar seat. BJP’s Dharamraj Nishad defeated SP’s Shobhawati Verma.
The by-poll performance also comes as a blow to the SP chief Akhilesh Yadav’s PDA (Pichchara, Dalit and Alpsankhyak) slogan, a caste-based strategy to set the stage for the 2027 assembly polls. Results show SP’s failure to woo SC voters on expected lines.
The SP-Congress combine had bagged SC votes in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls by focussing on their agenda ‘Samvidhan Bachao’.
