LUCKNOW: Having left unnerved by the crushing defeat in the Ghosi bypoll at the hands of the Samajwadi Party just ahead of the big battle of 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the state leadership of the ruling party has got into mission mode to get to its bottom and ascertain the reason for defeat by sending a team to ground zero. BJP’s Dara Singh Chauhan had lost the election by a margin of over 42,000 votes.
“It is imperative for the party to know the reasons for this defeat. A team will soon be sent to Ghosi to speak to cadre, local leadership and the members of the election management committee beside the Mau district leaders,” said a senior BJP leader.
Besides talking to the local leaders, the BJP team would also dig deep by interacting with the different caste and community leaders. It is believed that the Ghosi by-election witnessed a shift in the Dalit voters as SP candidate Sudhakar Singh got support from a respectable chunk despite the call given by Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati to her voters to keep away from voting.
On the contrary, BJP has been claiming since the 2014 Lok Sabha elections that Mayawati’s vote bank is gravitating towards them but that was not the case in Ghosi where the ruling party had put a robust campaign spearheaded by senior leaders including CM Yogi Adityanath himself and the ministers of his cabinet along with the allies including SBSP and NISHAD presidents. However, the main factor that emerged behind Chauhan’s defeat was his candidature as the party cadre at the grassroots perceived him more as an imported candidate with the tag of ‘habitual party hopper’.