Lok Sabha elections on mind, BJP leadership plans to counter factors that resulted in 'less' number of seats in UP Assembly polls

Vibha Sharma

Advertisement

New Delhi, April 24

The BJP may have won the high-stake elections to the Uttar Pradesh Assembly, but the worries of the central leadership appear to be far from over in view of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections when Prime Minister Narendra Modi will contest for a third consecutive term.

Sources indicate that the central leadership is planning counters to factors that resulted in a reduction in the number of saffron plus allies’ seats in the 2022 Assembly elections as compared to 2017.

According to a “report prepared by the state BJP leadership”, apart from a certain shift in votes of OBC castes like Kushwaha, Saini, Kurmi, Maurya, Nishad, Pal, Shakya, Rajbhar towards the Samajwadi Party, “polarisation” of Muslim votes was another reason for gains by the main rival in the state. Other factors reportedly identified for the tally coming down to 255 from 312 in 2017 include “floating votes” and votes of allies not transferring to BJP candidates.

Observers say that given that the road to the Lok Sabha is via the 80 constituencies in UP, the dip in number of seats despite an increase in vote share is a cause of concern for the BJP leadership in the 2024 general elections.

In fact, the buzz is that the saffron leadership is already on the job. A “saffron hand” is being attributed to the “growing closeness” between Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party Lohia (PSPL) leader and Akhilesh Yadav’s uncle Shivpal Singh Yadav and jailed Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan.

Shivpal, who met Azam Khan in the Sitapur jail last week, is said to be “very upset” with Akhilesh Yadav.

Though Shivpal won the recent assembly polls on an SP ticket, his growing closeness to the BJP, even meeting CM Adityanath once, has been the talk of the power corridors in Lucknow. He has also dared Akhilesh to expel him from the party if he felt that he was indulging in anti-party activities. The supporters of Azam Khan, meanwhile, are “upset with Akhilesh Yadav” because of his “silence on the manner in which the BJP was targeting Azam Khan and community,” which voted for the SP.

The coming together of an OBC and a Muslim leader as a political formation can spell trouble for Akhilesh Yadav who is now believed to be trying to diffuse the situation by reaching out to them

So far as the BJP is concerned, sources say the central leadership wants to take care of all the factors that led to decrease in number of seats despite the special membership drive in which “80 lakh new members were added”.

Also on the radar is NDA’s poor performance in Ghazipur, Ambedkar Nagar and Azamgarh districts and the SP alliance getting more postal votes than the BJP on more than 300 seats. Inputs from UP are being studied by BJP’ strategists in mind 2024 when the party aims for return to the Centre, the sources said.