Yesterday, the Bharatiya Janata Party lost both the Lok Sabha by polls in the constituency of Gorakhpur and Phulpur to the Samajwadi Party. While Phulpur has only been won once by the BJP since independence, in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, when the current deputy chief minister of Uttar Pradesh Keshav Prasad Maurya contested, BJP had been in power in the Gorakhpur seat since 1991.
Samajwadi Party won the Gorakhpur Lok Sabha constituency by 21,881 votes and Phulpur by 59,460 votes.
This came in the backdrop of the decision of the Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati to give her support to the Samajwadi Party candidates for the two Lok Sabha by polls a week before the elections took place on March 11. This resulted in the BSP party workers campaigning for both the SP candidates standing in the two respective seats.
There has been huge media coverage of these two by polls and many experts have pointed out why the alliance between the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party has the potential to create an earthquake in Indian electoral politics. Even chief minister Yogi Adityanath called it a ‘lesson’ for the BJP.
The Gorakhpur Lok Sabha constituency loss particularly came as a rude shock for the following reasons:
Firstly, the BJP had been in power in the seat since 1991.
Secondly, the current chief minister of Uttar Pradesh Yogi Adityanath has won from this constituency five times.
Thirdly, the influence of the Gorakhnath Math, of which Yogi Adityanath is the current head priest, in the politics of the Gorakhpur constituency. The head priests of the Gorakhnath Math have held the seat since 1989.
Many people are talking about how this alliance in the by polls can actually have a huge impact on the electoral politics of Uttar Pradesh and if such an alliance pulls through, it can actually end up in defeating the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
If we take a look at the cumulative votes of SP as well as the BSP in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections in the respective seats of Gorakhpur and Phulpur, one realises that they still fall short by a pretty huge margin but the gap narrows down. In Phulpur, their cumulative votes are less than BJP’s by 144598 and in Gorakhpur, by 136371 votes. However, the margin of votes polled reduces substantially when the cumulative votes are added, as the data below shows:
With BJP being the major force to reckon with in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, this particular alliance may actually have a huge role to play in the eventual outcome since the state of Uttar Pradesh sends 80 MPs to the Indian Parliament, out of the 543 who are elected. It is said, “Dilli ka darwaza UP se hi jaata hai.”
The BJP had won 71 out of the 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. This had majorly helped the BJP alone secure 282 seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
However, it must be noted that it may be too early to say that the BJP is already on the backfoot just because it lost two by poll seats, albeit an important one like the one in Gorakhpur because of the following reasons:
Firstly, there is no guarantee the SP-BSP alliance will eventually work out for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. While announcing the party’s decision to support the SP candidates for the two Lok Sabha seats, Mayawati herself had said, “Media mein yeh khabrein kaafi joron se ye pracharit ki jaari hai ki desh mein hone waale lok sabha chunav mein yahaan Uttar Pradesh mein Sapa wah Baspa ka chunavi gatbandhan ho gaya hai, yaa hone waala hai… jo sahi nahin hai, galat hai.” (It is being widely circulated in the media that in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, there is or will be an alliance between SP and BSP… this is wrong news.)
It must also be kept in mind that both the SP and the BSP have been political rivals for over 20 years now and this alliance is largely one of convenience.
There was a Mahagatbandhan in Bihar, comprising of the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Janata Dal (United) as the leading partners, which eventually broke, exposing the cracks which were always there. Such an alliance of convenience in UP should not be expected to be the strongest either.
Secondly, we must remember that these are just results of two by poll elections. It must be noted that the BJP has not won many by poll elections since forming the government at the Centre in 2014 but has managed to capture power in most states in the country.
Even if an alliance does become a reality, it is not necessary that it will be enough to topple the BJP government
Yes, we must take into account the importance of this by poll because it hints at an unexpected and powerful alliance for the subsequent Lok Sabha election and the importance of the Gorakhpur constituency. However, it must also be noted that it is too early to jump to any sort of conclusion.
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