The complacency of the opposition parties that the “anger of the people towards the government” would automatically transfer into votes for them, led to their debacle in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly bye-elections in which the Bharatiya Janata Party won six out of the seven seats despite the opposition dubbing Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s style of governance as anti-people.
The Samajwadi Party was confident that it would win at least three seats and therefore its president, Akhilesh Yadav, preferred to monitor the party’s campaign from his office while Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati entrusted her lieutenant Satish Chandra Mishra the task to monitor the campaign.
In sharp contrast, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath led the BJP campaign in which he was assisted by his deputies and ministers.
The striking point in the bypoll results is the margins of victory which is a testimony to the fact that the opposition has been summarily rejected by the electorate.
The Congress could manage the second position on only two seats, Bangarmau and Ghatampur, where the BJP won by 31,000 and 24,000 votes respectively. On the other seats, the Congress presence was negligible.
The BSP also could not perform as per its expectations and was second at Bulandshahr where the BJP won comfortably by over 23,000 votes.
The biggest disappointment, perhaps, was the performance of the SP. It came second on only two seats, Deoria and the Naugawan Sadat, which were won by the BJP by margins of 20,000 and 16000 votes, respectively.
The SP may have won the Malhani seat but it was with a low margin of about 4,500 votes.
Even the vote percentage in the by-elections proved that the voters did not show any interest in the SP, the Congress and the BSP. While the BJP got more than 40 percent votes in Bangarmau, the SP could manage to get only 20 percent votes, Congress 22 percent and BSP 10 percent.
Similarly, in Bulandshahr, the BJP got 40 percent votes while the BSP got 33 percent and the Congress could manage barely 5 percent votes.
In Deoria, while the BJP got more than 40 percent votes, the SP could manage only 28 percent votes.
In Ghatampur, the BJP received 39 percent votes followed by Congress (23 percent), BSP (21 percent) and SP (14 percent).
In Tundla, the BJP got 40 percent votes followed by SP (30 percent) with BSP at the third place with 22 percent votes.