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The combined arithmetic of the Mahagathbandhan failed to overpower the chemistry of “Modi magic” in the Prime Minister’s adopted State of Uttar Pradesh where the provisional vote share (till afternoon) of 49.50 per cent for the ruling BJP was higher than the total vote share of the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Congress, which stood at 43.6 per cent till late trends in counting on Wednesday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had polled a staggering 6,73,453 votes till trends last came in, was set to win by a huge margin of above five lakh votes over Shalini Yadav of the Mahagathbandhan.
The giant killer
The giant killer in the State was Union Minister Smriti Irani who defeated the Congress President Rahul Gandhi in his family bastion of Amethi. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh too was set to win big, having polled over 6,27,881 votes till the last count on Thursday.
Till trends last came in, the BJP was leading in as many as 61 seats, 10 short of its tally in 2014. The BSP seems to have directly benefited from the BJP’s loss with a gain of 11 seats although its vote share remained almost similar to what it got in 2014 at about 19.31 per cent. The SP was leading in five seats and the Congress had only one seat to look forward to – that of Rae Bareli – from where the former UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi was emerging as the winner.
The biggest story coming out of the Mahagathbandhan experiment in UP was that the famed capacity of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati to transfer her votes may have come a cropper as far as this election is concerned. The BSP managed to win seats; it was leading in 11 seats although its vote share was similar to that of 2014 i.e. around 19.31 per cent till trends last came in. The BSP had not won any seat in UP in the last Lok Sabha elections. Local SP workers analysed that while the SP managed to shift its vote to the BSP in the seats it had won, the BSP failed to do that. Among SP’s bigwigs, Dimple Yadav lost in Kannauj, while Dharmendra Yadav was trailing in Badaon. Both the Yadav family members had won in the 2014 Modi wave.
Although it lost in terms of total number of seats, the BJP increased its vote share in Uttar Pradesh by about 6.7 per cent (till late afternoon). The Congress’ decimation could not be starker with the party President Rahul Gandhi losing to Irani in his family bastion of Amethi by 35,899 votes. Accepting the Amethi defeat, Rahul Gandhi said he hopes that Smriti Irani will take care of the constituency with love. “I accept the defeat and I congratulate Smriti Irani,” he said. The Congress’ total vote share shrank to a measly 6.3 per cent in the most politically critical State in India.
“Once a party slips down to a third or a fourth position in the first past the post system, the recovery is almost impossible. More than the leadership question, the structural decline of the Congress makes it uncompetitive. If this is happening in crucial States with vast number of seats such as UP and Bihar, the political recovery of the Congress becomes extremely difficult,” said Adnan Farooqui of the Department of Political Science in Jamia Millia Islamia University.
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