A resurgent Akhilesh may dent BJP’s prospects in 2024

The BJP may have registered a massive victory in the recently concluded Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh and became the first party to win a second term in over 40 years in India’s politically weightiest state, which sends 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha and plays a crucial role in determining the winner in the national elections, but the fact that its tally came down from 312 seats in 2017 to 255 in five years despite the high decibel campaign, due largely to a resurgent Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav, should cause the BJP some worry.

In fact, the huge turnouts, mainly of youth, at Akhilesh’s election rallies during the campaigning had led many political experts to believe that he was poised to come back to power. That he didn’t came as a shock to them. For Akhilesh, who led his party into the Assembly polls singlehandedly for the first time, the results may not be satisfactory as he failed in his attempt to dethrone the BJP, but he managed to increase his party’s tally by 2.5 times, from 47 in 2017 polls to 111, and the vote share by 1.5 times, from 21% to 34%.

In doing so, the SP leader also helped his party sweep several eastern UP districts, including Ghazipur, Azamgarh, Ambedkar Nagar, and even wrested several seats in the saffron strongholds of Ayodhya, Ballia and some other districts.

Also Read | The bumpy road ahead for Akhilesh Yadav

“Akhilesh Yadav may be down but he is certainly not out…he has shown that he has what is required to take on the BJP despite the latter’s vast resources and a well-oiled election machinery,’’ remarked a Lucknow-based political analyst.

Akhilesh himself has said that the results had shown that the BJP can be defeated. “‘We have shown that the seats of the BJP can be reduced...this decrease (in BJP seats) will continue...we have already reached the halfway mark (to winning a simple majority)...the rest will be achieved in the days to come,’’ Akhilesh had said after the results were out.

A major achievement for Akhilesh in these polls was that he succeeded, even if partially, to rid his party of the ‘Yadav’ tag attached with the SP.

“Hitherto the SP was considered a party of the Yadavs and was anathema to many non-Yadav OBCs and other communities, including Brahmins and Thakurs…he has been able to shed this baggage to some extent in these polls,’’ the analyst said.

This fact was evident in the coalition formed by Akhilesh before the Assembly polls. Several OBC outfits, including the Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP), a Rajbhar outfit, Apna Dal (K), and Mahan Dal, another OBC outfit. The poll results also indicated that a section of the OBCs had voted for the SP in the eastern districts of Ghazipur, Mau and Ballia.

A section, though smaller, of the Brahmins also seems to have supported the SP, as was evident in the victory of its Brahmin leaders like Rakesh Pandey, who won from Ambedkar Nagar, and Mata Prasad Pandey, who emerged victorious from Itwa seat in Siddharth Nagar district.

The analysts also point out that Akhilesh lost the polls not because his party fared badly but because his alliance partners and the OBC leaders who had joined his party days before the polls failed to bring the votes of their communities to his kitty. OBC leaders like Swami Prasad Maurya and Dharam Singh Saini, who had resigned from the BJP and joined his party days before the polls, could not win their own seats. Even the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), a predominantly Jat outfit, which was expected to do well in the western UP region, also failed to perform as per expectations.

Akhilesh’s electoral ambition was also hurt to a great extent by the Muslim candidates fielded by Asaduddin Owaisi’s All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), which failed to open its account in the polls, and the BSP, which could manage to win only one seat.

Another major achievement for Akhilesh in the polls was that he was also able to rid his party of the ‘pro-Muslim’ image. “Although the Muslims did vote for the SP almost wholly, Akhilesh managed to counter the BJP’s attempts to polarise the polls along communal lines and the SP also got good support from the Hindus,’’ the analyst said.

The analyst noted that the BJP should be wary of the fact that Akhilesh was able to make the recent Assembly polls a two-cornered fight.

There was a direct fight between the BJP-led alliance and the SP-led alliance on almost all the seats in the state.

“A two-cornered contest will not suit the BJP in the 2024 LS polls as it will prevent division in the anti-BJP votes. Akhilesh has emerged as the only challenger to the BJP in India’s biggest state as the two other players -- Congress and BSP -- have been rendered irrelevant in the state’s electoral scenario,’’ another political expert said.

Akhilesh has dropped hints that he will strive to continue with his alliance with the OBC outfits as well as the RLD. He has also asked his party workers to keep raising issues concerning the common people and take on the BJP. “We will make sure that the BJP fulfils the promises it has made to the people, and we will expose its failures,’’ SP leader Rajendra Chaudhary said.

The BJP had, along with its alliance partners Apna Dal (S) and Nishad Party (NP), won 64 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state in the 2019 LS polls. If the results of the recent Assembly polls are projected onto 2024, the BJP’s tally could come down to 50-55.

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