Modi wave sweeps away BSP, RLD from UP

Communal polarisation, which started in western Uttar Pradesh from the first phase of elections in wake of the Muzaffarnagar riots, coupled with the Narendra Modi wave have wiped out Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) in the Lok Sabha elections from the state.

Except for a single seat of Badaun, in western Uttar Pradesh, all the remaining 20 seats which went to polls in the first two phases of elections in Uttar Pradesh were grabbed by the Bharatiya Janata Party.

BJP is expected to win 71 seats by setting up a record in the state along with two others of its pre-poll alliance partner Apna Dal.

It would be for the first time, in the history of Uttar Pradesh, that no member of the Muslim community has been elected for the Lok Sabha.

Two of Bharatiya Janata Party’s candidates who are also accused in the Muzaffarnagar communal riots also registered victories form their respective constituencies. Hukum Singh won from Kairana, while Kunwar Bhartendu bagged victory from Bijnore seat in western UP.

Though the ruling party in the state, Samajwadi Party, succeeded in retaining the Central UP seats of Mainpuri, Kannauj and Ferozabad, the victory came in only after a tough fight. In Eastern UP, out of the total 33 seats, BJP won in 31 seats leaving out only Amethi to Rahul Gandhi and Azamgarh to Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Congress, which faced its first historic defeat after the 1977 Janata Party wave, only managed to win from Rae Bareli and Amethi seats, where party president Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi were declared winners.

Rashtriya Lok Dal, which contested eight seats in alliance with Congress, faced a humiliating defeat in all the seats and in most of them the candidates even lost their sureties.

BJP had won just 10 seats in the last Lok Sabha elections in 2009 and won 47 out of 403 assembly seats in 2012 polls. In just two years the party has emerged as a force that had transcended the barriers of caste and creed. 

The amount of support BJP has got shows Muslims too have voted for Narendra Modi in this election. Astonishingly RLD has failed to even open its account. Chaudhury Ajit Singh, who was Union aviation Minister in Manmohan government and his son Jayant Chaudhry have both lost to BJP.    

Such was the effect of the Modi wave that not only Chaudhury but all Union ministers in the Manmohan Singh cabinet too lost in. Foreign affairs minister Salman Khurshid landed on the fourth spot in Farrukhabad.

Congress has welcomed the peoples’ mandate, but Samajwadi Party blamed the Congress and the BSP for failing to prevent the BJP in the state.

Terming performance of BJP as the victory of ‘communal forces’, Samajwadi Party (SP) today said that it would continue to work for strengthening secular forces in the country.

‘We respect the mandate... Our party will continue to work to strengthen secular forces. BJP has only tried to spread communalism and it’s the victory of communal forces,’ SP spokesman Rajendra Chowdhury told PTI.

He said that the party would review its performance in the days to come as the SP-led government in Uttar Pradesh had done a lot of development work.

The SP is leading on seven seats with three candidates belonging members of party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav’s clan and two seats from where he himself is contesting.