New Delhi: It was Uttar Pradesh, where the BJP had won 72 out of 80 seats in the Lok Sabha polls, that delivered the major blow. Of 11 Assembly seats which went to the polls, the Samajwadi Party won eight and the BJP only three.
What was humiliating for saffron forces was that the party lost Rohniya, an Assembly segment of Mr Modi’s Varanasi parliamentary constituency, and Charkheri, which had been vacated by Union minister Uma Bharti. UP was also a test case for newly-elected party president Amit Shah.
Saffron insiders felt that the party’s decision to make Hindutva hardliner Yogi Adityanath a key player in the campaign and his “moves to polarise the votebank on communal lines”, as well as the BJP’s bid to consolidate the majority votebank with issues like “love jihad” had boomeranged on the party.
In a bid to defend himself, Adityanath claimed that the party lost as he “was not allowed to campaign anywhere in the state”. The OBC and dalit votebanks that had rallied around Mr Modi during the Lok Sabha polls also deserted the outfit. With the BSP staying out of the fray, the dalit, OBC and Muslim votebanks consolidated in favour of the SP, that had got a major drubbing in the LS polls.
