How BJP micro-managed Lakhimpur Kheri & adjoining areas in UP

Many are surprised with the BJP's victory in Lakhimpur Kheri in the recently-concluded Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, where the farmers' agitation was at its "peak" after the October 2021 violence involving a Union Minister's son.

Addressing the issue, BJP leaders have said that they had roped in active youths from the same locality and community and provided them logistics so that they can garner support for the party and now it has got more workers from within the community for future rolls.

"The Pasi community was already with BJP because of the influence of former BSP leader Jugal Kishor, who is now with the BJP. The Jatav votes were yet a corcern for the party, however, the party through social outreach won all the eight seats -- which was a difficult task."

BJP's National Secretary Y. Satya Kumar said: "We worked for future elections too and have prepared workers in communities which were voting for other parties. We have got a major success in this elections.

"Not only this, the similar practice was adopted in other parts of the state to reach out Jatavs. In western Uttar Pradesh too, it paid dividend and despite farmers agitation, the party gained the votes which were micro managed at each booth."

The party relied on the feedback of the workers from other states who were assigned particular Assembly segments.

The fourth phase had nine districts of the Avadh region, Terai and Bundelkhand and included BJP bastion Lucknow and Congress stronghold Rae Bareli.

All eyes were also on Lakhimpur Kheri to see the impact of the farmers' unrest and the October 3, 2021 incident in which Union Minister of State Ajay Kumar Mishra's son Ashish Mishra allegedly ran over four farmers, following which three of Mishra's supporters were allegedly lynched in retaliatory violence.

While the BJP won all eight seats of Lakhimpur Kheri and Pilibhit, the impact of freebies like ration distributed among the poor during the Covid pandemic also showed favourable results for BJP.

The Samajwadi Party (SP) fell way behind in this phase and could win just 10 out of 59 seats.

By the time of the fifth phase, the BJP and allies had already crossed the majority mark of 203.

The phase had Ayodhya and big pockets of non-Yadav OBC voters. While the BJP had won the Ayodhya Sadar seat, it had to face defeat on two seats of the district.

A major shocker for the BJP was the defeat of Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya who lost from Sirathu. The SP swept Kaushambi and the BJP won in Gonda.

The SP performed reasonably well, winning 22 out of 61 seats in the fifth phase. The BJP and its alliance won 36.

The SP also did well in Pratapgarh and Sultanpur, to cover its poor performance in third and fourth phases.

Meanwhile, the sixth phase of polls included Gorakhpur, the Yogi Adityanath's bastion. The BJP swept all seats of Gorakhpur, Kushinagar and Deoria while SP scored victory in BSP's traditional bastion Ambedkar Nagar.

In the last two phases, it was the consolidation of Nishad voters, the non-Yadav OBCs, towards the BJP that emerged as the big deciding factor. The BJP had allied with Nishad Party that caters to non-Yadav OBCs and has a dominance in the districts of Purvanchal.

--IANS

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