Express News Service
LUCKNOW: While Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav drove all the way to BSP supremo Mayawati’s residence to express gratitude for her party’s support in clinching a win in UP bypoll, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath accepted the ruling party’s defeat as people’s mandate but not without calling the winning alliance a ‘saudebaaji’ (deal) here on Wednesday.
Interacting with media after the announcement of Gorakhpur and Phulpur results, CM Yogi called it a lesson for his party. Notably, Yogi was a five-time MP from Gorakhpur before vacating the seat in 2017 after being appointed UP CM.
"When the parliamentary by-elections were declared, all opposition parties SP, BSP, Congress were fighting separately. Towards the end... in the midst of campaigning for the byelections, the SP and BSP entered into an unnatural deal in view of the Rajya Sabha biennial elections and there was some shortcoming on our part in understanding its impact and over-confidence is a factor in this," Adityanath said.
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He said local factors play a role in byelections but in the General Elections, the good performance of the Modi government and its welfare schemes will have an impact in BJP's favour.
The Chief Minister conceded that the results were unexpected and the defeat is a lesson for the BJP which will do introspection about the causes of the setback and devise strategies to defeat the opposition. "The party needs to do a serious introspection rather than remain complacent," he said.
“I accept this as people’s mandate though it is unexpected and contrary to what we hoped,” said the CM adding that the party tried really hard. He claimed that there would be threadbare analysis of the
shortcomings.
Over by polls being pegged as a referendum on the performance of the BJP government, and that the outcome would impact 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the CM said that by elections were always fought on local issues but the general elections would be contested on national issues.
He attributed the defeat to party’s over confidence and a bit of complacency too. “We failed to fully read this alliance which was struck in the middle of the elections,” he accepted and claimed that people of this state would be able to see through this unholy alliance in the next election.
“Gorakhpur and Phulpur were prestigious seats for the party and defeat is a matter of introspection. We will have to chalk out a strategy for the future,” the CM said.
Even Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya also felt that now it was time to reach out to the drawing board again to re-draw a wider strategy to tackle the SP-BSP alliance, which in all probability, would be joined by the Congress.
However, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav claimed that BJP’s hollow promises and rhetorics had left the people miffed. He even attributed their defeat to the arrogance among the ranks.
(with IANS inputs)
