LUCKNOW: Samajwadi Party (SP) might have not succeeded in sending Yogi Adityanath back to his ‘Mutth’ in Gorakhpur, but the party led by Akhilesh Yadav put up an exemplary performance in at least five districts. It made a clean sweep of 28 seats across four districts in eastern UP and one in western UP.
The eastern UP districts where SP scored 100% are Ambedkarnagar with five constituencies, Kaushambi with three, Ghazipur with seven, Azamgarh with 10 and Shamli with three seats in west. On the other hand, BJP made a clean sweep in 23 districts across UP.
While better coordination between candidates and the party organisation helped SP in five districts, BJP’s organisation was found missing in these districts which cost the party. In 2017, BJP had won 13 of these 28 seats and this time, it drew a blank.
In Azamgarh, considered to be the turf of Akhilesh Yadav with a dominance of Muslim and Yadav combination, BJP had won one seat out of 10 in 2017. The BSP had won four. This time, SP won all 10 despite anti-incumbency not only against SP MLAs but also against Akhilesh, who represents Azamgarh in Lok Sabha.
SP’s success in Ambedkarnagar can be attributed to BSP bigwigs like Lalji Verma, Ram Achal Rajbhar and Rajesh Pandey defecting to SP. Kaushambi, considered to be the home turf of BJP’s Keshav Prasad Maurya, was lost in over confidence of the candidates despite huge rallies by Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. All three seats BJP had won in 2017, slipped out of its hands. Ghazipur is considered to be the turf of OP Rajbhar of Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party. BJP had won five of the seven seats there in alliance with Rajbhar in 2017. This time, Rajbhar moving over to SP tilted the balance.
Shamli was jolt to BJP as its minister Suresh Rana lost. The impact of farmers’ protest coupled with anti-incumbency hurt BJP. In 2017, the party had won two of the three seats.