Election Results 2017: BJP clean sweep in UP as Modi crushes opposition

The BJP was a giving Congress a tough fight in Manipur, Goa was also heading for a photo finish and the only solace for the Congress was its comprehensive victory in Punjab. BJP was heading for a sweep in Uttarakhand as well.

The victory in UP and other states will enable the PM to have his nominee for the post of the President of India, election to which is in June this year. It will also help the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance reach nearer to the majority mark in the Rajya Sabha in 2018. This would enable the Modi government to push through its legislative agenda, which until now was hobbled by the lack of majority.

With its inroads in Manipur, the BJP has proved that its success in Assam in 2016 wasn’t a fluke and that it was now a truly national party with a pan India presence. While the success in UP again establishes BJP chief Amit Shah as a strategist par excellence, the success in Manipur marks the emergence of party General Secretary Ram Madhav as a leader of the future.

In UP, the BJP has managed to retain the vote share that it had received in 2014. In the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP had bagged 42.3 per cent and won 337 of the assembly segments. It has managed to repeat that with a 40 per cent vote share in 2017.

While the triumph in UP will give the BJP the confidence to do an encore of 2014 in the 2019 Lok Sabah polls, it also puts immense pressure on the Modi government to deliver on its promises. The victory is also likely to be seen by the Modi government as a referendum in favour of demonetisation and could embolden it to take stringent steps against tax evaders. The poor, it would seem, has supported demonetisation despite the inconvenience they faced.

Other notable development is the Aam Aadmi Party’s failure to pose a challenge in Punjab and Goa. At the time of filing of this report, the Congress was winning comfortably in Punjab with leading in over 70 seats but AAP barely managing to cross 25-seats in the 117-member assembly.

It is a jolt to AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal who has hopes of becoming a rallying point for anti-Modi forces. The AAP’s vote share in Punjab, at the time of filing of this report, was lesser than that of the Shiromani Akali Dal and BJP coalition.

The results will also have ramifications for the internal feud within the Samajwadi Party, including Akhilesh Yadav’s decision to align with the Congress. The Congress was leading in only a dozen seats of the over 100-seats it had contested as part of the alliance. Similarly, the Bahujan Samaj Party has performed extremely poorly and wasn’t struggling to win even 25 seats, proving that BJP’s efforts to stitch a patchwork of non-Yadav OBC and non-Jatav Dalit castes.

It would seem Prime Minister Modi anticipated the results when he addressed a public rally on January 2 at the end of 50-days of demonetisation. He said BJP’s rivals have become “politically irrelevant”.

Modi’s popularity now rivals that of Indira Gandhi from 1970 onwards. The PM has persisted with his ‘garib kalyan’, or welfare of the poor, agenda and displaced the Congress as the party for the poor of India

In Lucknow, seemed aware of history when he echoed Indira Gandhi. She had famously said in her 1971 election campaign, where her party’s slogan was ‘Garibi Hatao’, remove poverty: “Woh kahate hain Indira hatao; hum kahate hain garibi hatao” (my opponents call for Indira’s removal; I want poverty to be removed).

In Lucknow, Modi said: “Woh kahate hain Modi hatao; main kehta hoon kaladhan hatao, bhrashtachar hatao (they say remove Modi; I say end black money, end corruption).”