SP may back BSP in the Rajya Sabha polls

IN BIHAR, the BJP clearly failed to capitalise on Nitish Kumar’s return to the NDA fold.

BJP’s Mission 2019 got a major scare as the party received a stunning blow as it lost the prestigious Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh to the Samajwadi Party, supported by the BSP, and two of the three bypolls (Jehanabad Assembly and Araria Lok Sabha) to the RJD in Bihar.

In Bihar, the RJD retained the Araria Lok Sabha seat and the Jehanabad Assembly seat, while the BJP managed to hang on to the Bhabua Assembly seat. The Bihar results were also being seen as a setback for JD(U) chief and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who had crossed over to the saffron side.

The Uttar Pradesh byelection results were also a major boost for BSP supremo Mayawati and SP’s Akhilesh Yadav, who are struggling to stay afloat electorally in Uttar Pradesh, which has been witnessing a saffron surge since 2014.

While Praveen Nishad of SP defeated the BJP’s Upendra Dutt Shukla by 21,881 votes from Gorakhpur, SP’s Nagendra Pratap Singh Patel won Phulpur by a margin of over 59,000 votes.

During the campaign, the BJP, led by chief minister Yogi Adityanath, had exuded confidence about winning both the Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha seats and had gone on record to call the elections as a “dress rehearsal for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections”.

Thrashed by the BJP in the last Assembly elections, the BSP and SP came together at the last minute.

The BSP did not field candidates in Gorakhpur and Phulpur, and instead supported the SP candidates. The Samajwadi Party is now expected to support the BSP in the Rajya Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh later this month.