BJP hopes to clip Oppn resurgence and win all bypoll seats in UP, political experts say not easy

Lucknow: Following a setback in the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP has vowed to win all 10 Assembly seats, where by-elections are to be held, underlining its dominance in the state and sending a message to the Opposition that its recent resurgence was short-lived.

Political observers, however, say it could be an uphill task for the ruling NDA alliance.

Bypolls are to be held on 10 seats that fell vacant after nine MLAs were elected as MPs in this year’s Lok Sabha elections and the MLA of Sishamau was convicted and given a seven-year jail sentence. However, the dates for the polls have not been announced yet.

“Let us all pledge that we will achieve 100 per cent victory in the upcoming by-elections on 10 Assembly seats,” BJP’s UP unit president Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary exhorted party workers at the party’s state working committee meeting held on July 14.

Since then the BJP organisation has been making extensive preparations for all 10 seats, including at the booth level, with ministers and party office-bearers assigned the responsibility of one Assembly constituency each.

BJP state vice-president and Legislative Council member Vijay Bahadur Pathak told news agency that even though the by-election dates have not been decided, “the party has started extensive preparations.”

BJP and its allies will together win all the 10 seats, asserted Pathak, who is involved in the party’s election management.

This won’t be easy, political analysts say pointing to the results of the last elections, wrangling for tickets among alliance partners and reported infighting in the party’s state unit.

“Looking at the outcome of the 2022 Assembly elections and the 2024 Lok Sabha election results, BJP’s resolution of victory on all 10 seats is very challenging,” political analyst and retired professor of Lucknow University, Dr Rajesh Mishra, told news agency.

“The political and social equations of the seats for by-elections are such that there will be a challenge for the BJP on many seats. If there was a problem in the recent Lok Sabha elections, then the BJP will have even more problems in the Assembly by-elections,” Mishra said.

In the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP won 33 seats — a massive drop from the 62 it had won in 2019. Its allies RLD and Apna Dal (S) managed three more seats taking the alliance tally to 36. The state’s main opposition party Samajwadi Party (SP), meanwhile, won 37 seats, the Congress won six and another seat was won by Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram.

Two years before, in the Assembly polls, the BJP had won comfortably.

Among the seats that are going to bypolls, the BJP had given the Majhava and Katehari tickets to its ally Nishad Party and fielded its own candidate in Karhal, Milkipur, Kundarki, Khair, Ghaziabad, Meerapur, Phulpur and Sisamau.