Barring the Congress, all other major parties in Uttar Pradesh will be gloomily introspecting on the poll results for some time. For, none of them, including the Congress, were expecting results like this.
As for the Congress, it’s tally of 21 seats marks a two-decade surge. Belief in the 'Rahul factor’ has got a big boost — the party did well at all the places he campaigned — as has the belief in rebuilding their old base, by being unafraid to go alone.
Mayawati’s ruling BSP was expecting at least 40 of the 80 seats, if not much more, confessed a senior party leader. They have barely got 20 and will be re-looing at their much-hyped 'social engineering’ umbrella formula. Her blue brigade was expecting to make history as in the last assembly poll, trying its Dalit-Brahmin-Muslim equation; it was also expecting to polarise minorties on its side by the slapping of the National Security Act on Varun Gandhi for his anti-Muslim speeches. It hasn’t happened.
As for the Samajwadi Party of ex-CM Mulayam Singh Yadav, the 21 seats it has got is a huge setback. Thye had 35 last time and were expecting to repeat or better this, the better to become king-makers at Delhi, to then hopefully put central pressure to get Mayawati out. After roping in former arch-rival and once BJP star, Kalyan Singh, Mulayam was expecting to repeat last time’s triumph in central and west UP. More so, given the BJP alliance with Ajit Singh’s RLD; their vote-split calculations gave them much cheer.
It didn’t happen; Ajit kept his Jat vote bank, making a clean sweep of seats where the community had a big presence. The Kalyan alliance seems to have only helped in Etah and Bulandshahr, while Mayawati took away a large chunk of Muslim votes, one factor where Mulayam had spent a lot of time and energy to build on. The only solace for him was Jayaprada’s victory at Rampur, despite active work by prominent rebel and ex-minister, Azam Khan.
As for the Congress, they had never expected such an encouraging response. More, given the number of first-timers from thjeir ranks who have made it. Some of the victories of freshers such as ex-bureaucrat P L Punia, of Annu Tandon and youngesters like Vinay Pandey from Shravasti and Pradeep Aditya from Jhansi has the party itself stunned.
As for the BJP, while its leaders are consoling themselves by comparing their tally to last time’s poor show, the fact is they were hoping for more than 20 seats. And after the Varun Gandhi phenomenon, their hopes went right up. But the Varun factor didn’t finally help, though he addressed more than three dozen meetings in the third, fourth and fifth phase of elections. After the campaigning of Gujarat CM Narendra Modi and Varun, the BJP was certain its 20-plus tally was in the bag.
Congress party spokesman Akhilesh Pratap Singh notes that voters in UP preferred development over caste appeal this time. His party has won 21 and come second place in a dozen more, winning nine seats where it had last won in 1984. The two prominent SP rebels, Raj Babbar and Beni Prasad Verma, both won with Congress support, despite all-out efforts by the SP to ensure their defeat.
