NEW DELHI – Despite the BJP’s historic victory in Uttar Pradesh, the drubbing faced by 11 ministers of the Yogi Adityanath government, including Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Maurya, who was credited with the party’s win in 2017, and Sugarcane Minister Suresh Rana, has raised many questions within the party.
The defeat of Rana from Shamli district, Rajendra Pratap Singh alias Moti Singh from Pratapgarh, Chandrika Prasad Upadhyay from Chitrakoot, Anand Swarup Shukla from Ballia, Upendra Tiwari, Satish Dwivedi from Siddharthnagar district, Lakhan Singh Rajput from Auraiya, Chhatrapal Singh Gangwar from Bareilly, Ranvendra Singh from Fatehpur, Sangeeta Balwant from Ghazipur and the controversial MLA Sangeet Som, has raised several questions about the party’s prospects in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
While the BJP broke the trend in Uttarakhand by returning to power for the second time, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami lost the election from Khatima, which has made it difficult for the party to elect a new Chief Minister.
Uttar Pradesh polls have proved that the Modi-Yogi bond is stronger than the combined popularity of Samajwadi party’s Akhilesh Yadav, and the Congress’s Rahul-Priyanka pair.
For the first time in 37 years, Uttar Pradesh has returned a party to power, that too, with a thumping majority of 273 seats. In a state where the government is usually formed with 30 per cent votes, the BJP is set to form the government for the second time in a row, by securing over 40 per cent votes.
While Priayanka Gandhi’s failure in resurrecting the Congress in Uttar Pradesh called for revamp in the party, Modi held a massive roadshow in Gujarat, the very next day after poll results, to kickstart his party’s campaign for the Assembly elections in the state scheduled this year.
Assembly elections are due in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat, which is the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi where he has been the Chief Minister for over 12 years.
The BJP has been winning the Assembly elections in Gujarat since 1995. However, since 1993, no party has been been voted to power twice in a row in Himachal Pradesh.
Even though the Congress is the main opposition party in both the states, the BJP, which is determined to win both the elections, has already fielded its most popular faces for the post of Chief Minister.
However, unlike the Congress, the BJP constantly analyses its election results and accordingly keeps on altering its future strategies.
