Uttar Pradesh is the country’s largest state that sends the largest chunk of legislators to the nation’s parliament. The state’s 80 members of parliament in a house of 543 often make or break the national government. In 2014 and 2019, they made the BJP’s fortunes, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party winning 71 and 62 seats in those two elections. In the recent Lok Sabha elections, the BJP ended up with just 33 seats, with its allies winning three more. The Samajwadi Party, a member of the Congress-led INDIA alliance, won 37 seats. The Congress itself won six more. The Uttar Pradesh result, along with losses in the western state of Maharashtra, has forced the BJP to rely on alliance partners to form a government, short of a national majority on its own. The opposition INDIA alliance managed to successfully stitch together a coalition of Dalits, other traditionally disadvantaged communities — known as Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in India — and Muslims in many parts of the state.
The decline of BJP in Uttar Pradesh is very clear. Even in Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi won the seat, but with his margin dramatically slashed, from 4,80,000 votes in 2019 to 1,52,000 this time. Many of the constituencies near Varanasi, which the BJP had hoped to win riding on Modi’s presence in the city, went to the INDIA alliance. The Varanasi region has 12 Lok Sabha seats—Varanasi, Jaunpur, Machhlishahr, Bhadohi, Chandauli, Mirzapur, Robertsganj, Ghazipur, Ghosi, Azamgarh, Lalganj and Ballia. In 2019, the BJP and its allies had won seven of these seats, losing Jaunpur, Ghazipur, Ghosi, Lalganj and Azamgarh. This time, the BJP and allies won only Varanasi, Bhadohi and Mirzapur. Even Dalit voters had ditched the Bahujan Samaj Party and switched over to the Samajwadi Party, which they felt was stronger and had the potential to take on the BJP.
But there is another angle. The absence of coordination between Lok Sabha candidates and party MLAs has emerged as one of the main reasons for the BJP’s underwhelming performance in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh. Infighting among party leaders is another factor. Besides, there was no enthusiasm among the party workers across the state because of various reasons. Common among them was the State BJP leadership’s inability to communicate with the party workers as it had been the case in the previous elections. Another common trend reported was a misplaced confidence among candidates, state leaderships and office-bearers that despite not doing much work, they would sail through as the 2024 Lok Sabha polls were not about electing MPs but giving a third term to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This complacency led to party candidates not listening to workers’ feedback and even not fulfilling the basic requirements of party workers and functionaries.
