Bypoll results underline need for SP to press refresh button
LUCKNOW: The road to the 2024 Lok Sabha polls for Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party (SP) looks tougher now than it did before the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) clinched the Rampur and Azamgarh Lok Sabha seats in the bypolls. The results were declared on Sunday.
The BJP, which is in its second successive innings in Uttar Pradesh and looking for a third consecutive term at the Centre, has begun talking about winning all the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh in 2024.
Hours after his party won Rampur and Azamgarh, chief minister Yogi Adityanath set the target of winning all the Lok Sabha seats.
The day after, deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya tweeted how the BJP and its allies are closing on in on the target. In a tweet in Hindi, Maurya said: “UP BJP+ MPs are now 64+2=66.” On the other hand, the Samajwadi Party’s tally in the Lok Sabha has shrunk. In 2014 and 2019, the SP won only five Lok Sabha seats (its lowest tally ever then). In between, its morale had received a boost when the SP won Yogi Adityanath’s citadel Gorakhpur and Maurya’s Phulpur in the 2018 Lok Sabha bypolls.
With these two wins, the SP’s tally in the 16th Lok Sabha had gone up to seven barely a year before the 2019 general elections.
Now, the BJP has turned the tables on the SP. The BJP wrested two SP strongholds in the run-up to the 2024 general elections. The SP is down to three members in the 17th Lok Sabha.
“The BJP has not only demolished the two garhs (fortresses) of the SP, but also has thrown SP’s M-Y (Muslim-Yadav) vote bank into disarray. The SP has made the BJP’s road to the 2024 smoother,” said SK Dwivedi, a political analyst and former head of the political science department at Lucknow University. Akhilesh Yadav will have to re-think, work hard, change his strategies and reorganise the party if he wants a different outcome, he added.
“Akhilesh must overcome internal conflicts and pressures and dump parivarvaad. In both Rampur and Azamgarh, instead of gauging the BJP’s obvious and logical intent, Akhilesh did not field candidates seriously and strategically. Akhilesh succumbed to Azam Khan’s pressure tactics and fielded Khan’s aide. In Azamgarh, he fielded a family member, Dharmendra Yadav,” Dwivedi added.
A senior SP leader, not wishing to be named, said: “The worst thing that has happened because of the half-hearted way the SP contested the bypolls was sowing the seeds for Bahujan Samaj Party’s revival ahead of the general elections. Already, because of the 2019 alliance with the SP, the BSP went from zero to 11 seats (in the Lok Sabha) and now in Azamgarh, the BSP clearly played the spoiler for the SP by grabbing a sizable chunk of Muslim votes. BSP candidate Guddu Jamali polled nearly 29% of the total votes.”
BSP chief Mayawati was quick in using the Guddu Jamali’s performance to boost the morale of her outfit. On Monday morning, she congratulated Jamali and the party’s cadre on the performance and asked them to continue to work on the ground in the entire state to covert the hard work into victories in 2024.
Fakrul Hasan Chand, a spokesperson for the Samajwadi Party, said: “The party will analyse where we went wrong, take corrective measures and will win these two seats again in the 2024 Lok Sabha general elections. It is only the SP that can take on the BJP.”
He also said that the party will work with new vigour for the 2024 polls, taking along the existing alliance partners.
But another problem that Akhilesh may have to face is the stance of the alliance partners.
While one of the partners, the Mahan Dal has already split, others are reiterating that they will stay with the SP
Even the SBSP whose chief Om Prakash Rajbhar had been blowing hot and cold and criticised Akhilesh Yadav, openly reiterates that it will stay with the SP.
“The SBSP was, is, and will be with SP,” said Piyush Mishra, SBSP national spokesperson. Some SP insiders say that after the bypoll defeat, Akhilesh may have to face bargaining from the alliance partners for a higher seat share.
The SP has accused the BJP of misusing power and official machinery.
Soon after the Rampur and Azamgarh defeat, Akhilesh had said in a statement: “Celebrating the ill-gotten victory is making a mockery of the people...But the truth is, the public will destroy BJP’s arrogance in 2024”. The Azamgarh and Rampur outcome seems to have drawn the battle lines for 2024.