Panchayat poll results ahead of Assembly elections next year indicate BJP set to lose power in Uttar Pradesh

The BJP has got a rude shock in losing the just-concluded zila panchyat elections held in UP even as places like Ayodhya, Varanasi (Kashi) and Mathura, three well-known Hindu bastions, after having won many elections riding on the Hindutva wave in the name of Ayodhya where a grand Ram temple is being built.

In Ayodhya, the BJP got only six seats out of a total of 40 seats while Samajwadi Party got 24.

In Varanasi, which is represented by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Lok Sabha, BJP got only eight out the 40 seats while Samajwadi Party got 14 seats.

In Mathura, Mayawati’s BSP got 12 seats followed by nine of BJP.

In the state capital Lucknow, the trends put the SP-backed candidate in the lead position on eight out of 25 zila panchayat seats, while the BJP is ahead on just three.

Significantly, in Gorakhpur, the hometown of chief minister Yogi Adityanath, the BJP just about managed to eke out a victory by securing 20 seats followed by 18 of Samajwadi Party and four of BSP.

Though political parties do not issue their symbols for the three-tier panchayat polls, they indicate the candidates they support in the zila panchayat election.

Samajwadi Party has emerged as the front runner in the zila panchayat polls with an impressive tally of 790 seats, which include Rashtriya Lok Dal, while BJP got 699 and BSP got 354. The number of Independents is much higher at 1,247.

Other districts where Samajwadi Party-candidates are ahead of BJP-backed candidates include Farrukhabad, Etawah, Balrampur, Amroha, Siddarthnagar, Azamgarh, Shravasti, Chandauli, Firozabad, Etah, Bijnor, Mainpuri, Raebareli, Deoria, Unnao, Amroha, Mirzapur, Gonda, Kanpur, Balia, Kushinagar, Mainpuri, Firozabad and Sultanpur.

Even BSP, which has been accused of being the ‘B team’ of the BJP all these years, managed to get 354 seats.

The Congress has done well too, with UPCC president Ajay Kumar Lallu saying that the party had won 270 seats, came second in 573 seats and third in 713 seats.

The poor performance of BJP is attributed to the poor handling of the COVID pandemic, the mood against the three farm laws and discontent against the performance of the state government.

Since these elections are being considered as a ‘semi-final’ before the 2022 assembly polls, the mood of rural voters reflected through these election is very crucial for all political parties.

It would be worth mentioning that while the opposition parties were somewhat demoralised during the last four years, it was the BJP which took these elections very seriously, knocking every door for votes through its vast network of workers.

The results have proved to be a morale booster for the opposition parties, especially the Samajwadi Party, which didn’t really make much effort during the last four years to catch the voters’ eye.

Being in power, BJP is now said to be reaching out to independents who have outnumbered all political parties to grab the post of zila panchayat presidents in maximum number of districts.

CPI national secretary Atul Anjaan said that the poor performance of BJP in Ayodhya, Varanasi and Mathura indicated that people were fed up with the politics of BJP on communal lines. He further said that rural voters of UP were also fed up with the farm laws of the state government. He claimed that the farmers’ agitation had the support of a large numbers of farmers, which is reflected in the rejection of BJP in the polls.

(IPA Service)