New Delhi: Uttar Pradesh has been central to the Bharatiya Janata Party. Its first government was possible due to its ‘single largest’ status in 1996, when it got 52 of 85 seats in the state.
In 2004, it slumped to 10 of 80 in UP and got pushed out of power. In 2009, too, BJP stayed at 10. The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance was re-elected.
Since 2014, BJP has scored record seats in the Lok Sabha and in assembly elections in UP – 72 in 2014 and then, 62 in 2019.
But come 2024, it has got beaten down to 33, with an all-time high in its own history scored by the Samajwadi Party which won 37 seats, emerging as the top party. Congress has got 6.
BJP is a bigger party now, with seats in other states, some traditional strongholds like Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, and some new areas like Odisha and Telangana. So it has emerged as the single largest party with 240 seats.
But there are other markers of deep trouble here. What happens in UP does not stay in UP for the BJP.
Modi is not Nehru, that first PM from UP. As historian Gyan Prakash, currently teaching at Princeton University, pointed out, to say that Modi returning for a third term is ‘like Nehru’ is simply untrue:
“Modi’s claim to equal Nehru’s record of returning three time as PM rings hollow when you consider that Nehru became PM three times with the Congress returning in majority all those times. That has eluded Modi. He can never equal Nehru, never!”
In 1962, India’s first prime minister returned to power for the third time running by scoring a full majority and with 361 of 494 seats then. Modi is diminished and is well below a majority, with just 240 seats.
Modi’s personal brand was about Modi as avatar and a holy Varanasi hostage to his charms
The union government controversially issued official press releases referring to the BJP-led government as the ‘Modi government’ this past year. Indeed, Modi has recently led a personal campaign rendering his party and government almost invisible. On the banks of the Ganga, on May 14, when Modi had gone to file his nomination as a candidate for Varanasi for the third time, he claimed he was “not biological”, saying he had descended directly from the gods. The chairman of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s Champat Rai had earlier called Modi “an avatar of Lord Vishnu.”
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
When Modi sacrificed his Surat MP-ship to be the Varanasi MP, he had vowed to turn it into Kyoto in Japan. The art and laser shows, and ghats where visiting dignitaries were whizzed off to, were to be at the heart of his plans of remaking India into a Hindu India. Varanasi would be ground zero, with Modi as avatar.
But if public approval and the vote is the source of all legitimacy then his project has been hit by his own victory margin this time, which is the lowest for any sitting MP.
The 152,513-vote margin is not only “a sharp fall from the 2019 victory margin of 479,505 votes, it is also lower than his 2014 victory margin of 371,784 votes”, reports Hindustan Times. In the list of margins amongst 239 colleagues, he is at number 116. That the ruling party with its gargantuan machinery had some inkling that all was not well can be inferred by how comedian and Modi mimic, Shyam Rangeela despite his best efforts to contest Modi, found his nomination papers rejected on controversial grounds.
Then, the Jyotishmath Shankaracharya Avimukteshwaranand Saraswati told reporters that in Varanasi, a “gausevak [cow worshipper] candidate was being prevented from contesting elections”. One Shivakumar of Andhra Pradesh Police had filed his nomination in Varanasi. He was part of the Gomata alliance and its official candidate, but eventually was intimidated by the administration of Varanasi alleged the Shankaracharya.
Notably, Saket Mishra, the son of Modi’s principal secretary, Nripendra Mishra (who was eventually appointed to build the Ram temple), has lost from Shrawasti by 76,673 votes.
Ram and the vote: Jo Ram ko laaye hain, hum unko laayenge
The Hindutva argument directly invoked the Ram temple, asking for votes for the BJP and Modi because they “built the temple,” hurriedly inaugurating a half-constructed structure in January, by making Modi the priest. The process did not allow any other leaders to make it to the venue other than Adityanath and Anandiben Patel, forcing even Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh to watch it on TV. The Lok Sabha constituency of Faizabad, where Ayodhya is situated, became ground zero for this Hindutva argument.
The comprehensive win posted by a nine-term MLA, a Dalit Samajwadi Party candidate (in an unreserved seat) has crushed any claim Modi could have made to the place. He made three visits to Ayodhya recently. Winning candidate Awadesh Prasad, currently Milkipur MLA told reporters that Modi “explored the idea of contesting from here, but was deterred by intelligence reports making it clear that SP was the leading candidate by far.”
This is also an example of SP and Congress’s granular ticket distribution and a concerted and successful effort to broaden their social base. Both parties defied being termed as parties for only minorities or dominant castes. At least two candidates from Dalit communities were fielded in general seats in a caste-conscious state. This fazed the ruling party. Other than Faizabad, in Meerut, Sunita Verma who belongs to a Dalit community, was fielded to take on actor Arun Govil. She lost, but not before giving a big scare to the BJP.
Also read: Due to INDIA Bloc’s Stellar Show, Backward Caste MPs Outnumber Those from Upper Caste in UP
Another point to bolster the abject failure of BJP’s religion card is that the party’s saffron-clad candidates, with the exception of Sakshi Maharaj, have all faced a drubbing. Two lost and two others, including the Malegaon blast-accused Pragya Thakur, were dropped.
Kairana and Muzaffarnagar banish ghosts of 2013
These were constituencies that turned into symbols due to the dark series of events that unfolded there from 2013.
The riots in Muzaffarnagar and Kairana was used to stage stories of Hindu ‘exodus’, and polarise people in nearby areas, and outside too. Cleavages here, following the riots in 2013 were pushed by the BJP, and set the stage for the BJP to dominate the state’s politics, capitalising on the social fabric being disrupted.
Kairana has been won by the Samajwadi party’s Iqra Choudhary, a 28-year old woman, who is the daughter of political stalwart S.T. Hasan. Choudhary has won by 69,116 votes. Her campaigns drew enthusiastic crowds across the religious divide. Muzaffarnagar saw SP’s Harendra Singh Malik pip Sanjeev Singh Baliyan by 24,672 votes. There was nothing gained by getting Rashtriya Lok Dal into the fold. If anything, there is reason to believe it drove away BJP voters who had come to escape the RLD, and for those RLD voters who were angry with the BJP’s position over farmers and the farm stir, the alliance again was anathema.
Chanakya?
That Amit Shah had ensured that the Bahujan Samaj Party or BSP remains away from INDIA was peddled as an open secret and a masterstroke. But as The Wire’s analysis showed that the BSP contesting alone, as well as Mayawati’s virtual absence from active politics, in fact hurt the BJP and benefitted INDIA.
There were 47 Lok Sabha seats in UP where the BSP’s vote share was more than the victory margin of either the SP or the BJP. Of these 47, 31 were won by the INDIA alliance. This means that the Opposition benefitted more from the BSP deciding to contest alone. There were 16 seats that the BJP won where its victory margin was less than the BSP’s votes. On 33 seats in UP, the BSP’s vote was irrelevant as it did not impact the final outcome. BSP has contested the maximum number of seats that any party has done in 2024 but it did not manage to get a single seat.
Allahabad turns
The other important pilgrim city in UP, Allahabad has often served a theatre for many high-profile political contests. It has Phulpur, Jawaharlal Nehru’s seat. The Congress won Allahabad for the last time 40 years ago in 1984 when Amitabh Bachchan won. It has done so again after four decades. Ujjwal Raman Singh has won from here by 58, 795 votes.
Read all of The Wire’s reporting on and analysis of the 2024 election results here.
