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RSS top brass takes stock of UP bypoll debacle

New Delhi: Weeks after the ruling BJP suffered a resounding defeat in the hands of SP-BSP alliance in both Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha by-elections in March, a core group of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) held a meeting on political evolution in the state of Uttar Pradesh in Lucknow on Sunday.
All the senior leaders of Sangh including Dattatreya Hosbole, Krishna Gopal, Anil Kumar, Alok Kumar, Shiv Prakash and Sunil Bansal were present in the meeting, sources said.
Alok Kumar is the Sangh's field campaigner of Western Uttar Pradesh and Anil Kumar is the field campaigner of
Eastern part of the state of the RSS.
Not only they discussed about the changing political dynamic, the RSS affiliated like Bharatiya Majdoor Sangh, whose representatives were also present in the meeting, expressed their disappointment with the ruling government at the Centre, sources further said.
RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat held a UP yatra in the month of March to take stock of the current political and socio-economic scenarios of the state.
The feedback's from the people and many social organisations of the state during yatra were also discussed during the meeting.
During the meeting, the Sangh top brass has also decided to take up these issues with the government at the Centre and further decided to hold a 'Manthan' meet in Pune on April 17. Sangh Chief Mohan Bhagwat and leaders from entire nation will also be present along with other senior leaders, sources said.
The Lok Sabha elections may be a year away and political pundits see the
manthan meet significant in the wake of recent debacles in LS by-polls.
The recent by-polls witnessed a political coalition between Akhilesh Yadav-led SP and its erstwhile rival Mayawati's Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) after decades and won by a margin of 21,961 votes in Gorakhpur and a margin of 59, 613 votes in Phulpur.
Both the seats were vacated by Chief Minister Adityanath and his deputy Keshav Prasad Maurya last year, when BJP and its allies swept into power in Uttar Pradesh.
It was also seen as an attempt on part of the SP, which has a core OBC, and Muslims vote strength, to correct the social base by wooing them and BSP, an exponent of Dalits, is now in the position to counter the questions over the party's capacity to transfer its votes. UP Deputy CM KP Maurya who had won the Phulpur seat by a huge margin during the Modi wave in 2014, admitted that the BJP had not anticipated that the BSP would manage to transfer votes.
After BJP's defeat in UP, Bihar, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh by-polls the number has decreased to 273 in the Lok Sabha, where 2014 general elections, the saffron party had won 282 seats on its own.

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