Cong, BJP fortunes intertwined in UP

The fate of the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party in Uttar Pradesh is becoming inversely proportionate to each other.

The Congress, which has faced a humiliating debacle in the Lok Sabha elections last year, is now showing signs of resurgence while the BJP, after winning 71 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state, is steadily going downhill.

The BJP’s decline in UP after the Lok Sabha elec- tions has been shocking, to put it rather mildly. The party first lost 9 Assembly seats in the byelections to 12 seats that were held after the Lok Sabha polls. All the seats were held by the BJP. The party also lost the byelection to the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat.

Then the BJP lost the Assembly by- elections to Charkhari ( held for the second time) and now the Pharenda assembly seat. In between the BJP also faced the defeat of its second candidate in the Rajya Sabha biennial elections.

“We have lost about 40,000 to 45,000 votes in each Assembly segment in the past one year and this is a clear indication of the receding Modi wave. The party organisation in the state is in shambles and the senior leaders have com- pletely withdrawn into their shells. With Assembly elections just a year away, we do not see much hope for the party that, till a few months ago, was proclaiming to form government in Uttar Pradesh in 2017,” said a senior party functionary.

Party workers blamed the state of affairs on the “inefficiency and lack of cohesion” among the state leaders.

They feel that the direct impact of the party’s dwindling fortunes will be all the more visible in the upcoming panchayat elections and will have an adverse impact on the morale of party cadres.

The Congress, on the other hand, has quietly seen a rise in its fortunes.

In the Charkhari by election in April, the Congress candidate ranked third and garnered 36,513 votes — a marked improvement from the days when the party ended up with 2000 or 3000 votes.

UPCC president Nirmal Khatri said that the results were a clearly pointing to the fact that the Modi magic is on the wane.

● The Congress, which has faced a humiliating debacle in the Lok Sabha elections last year, is now showing signs of resurgence