BJP’s Electoral Triumph

Unbelievable as it may   seem, Samajvadi Party and its allies, Rashtriya Lok Dal and Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party candidates would have won 70 seats more for cutting away anti-BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) votes by the Bahujan Samaj Party[BSP] in the recently-held elections to the 403-member Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly. The BJP and its allies, Apna Dal (Soneylal) and Nirbal Indian Shoshit Hamara Aam Dal bagged 255, 12 and six seats respectively. The SP, RLD and SBSP won 111, eight and six seats respectively. These are those seats where BSP candidates forfeited their security seats. There are 20 more seats where BSP received votes between 16.35% and 20% votes to help BJP avert defeat by SP-alliance candidates. So in at least 90 seats the BSP-led by former UP chief minister played spoilsport in the elections to UPLA by splitting of anti-BJP votes. Overall, in 160-plus seats SP alliance plus BSP votes exceeded the votes other than the 125 seats won by the SP and its allies. The BJP got 41.29% of valid votes, followed by 12.88% by BSP while SP and RLD got 32.06% and 2.85% of votes.

BSP had lost deposits in 72 percent of the seats it contested. Its chief having been on tenter-hooks by the central agencies like Enforcement Directorate and Income-Tax Departments that dance to the tune, scored by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah, bends down to the former. She knew well that her party would not do at all (bagged a single seat). She served the Sangh Parivar remarkably well and awaits ‘inam’ from BJP brass. Grapevine has it that she is considered for the post of President of India. The tenure of current President Ramnath Kovind ends in July this year.

Yogi Adityanath, UP chief minister and a hard-core RSS sakha claimed that BJP would win 350-plus seats and get 80 percent of votes on the assumption that 80% of voters are Hindu. It suggests strongly that over 45% of Hindus voted against BJP and Adityanath. Vote strategist Prasant Kishor in an interview to the India TV blamed the SP top leader Akhilesh Yadav for waking up in the last two months before the UPLA elections and laying before the electorate a ‘counter-narrative’. On the contrary, he argued, in West Bengal, the All India Trinamool Congress worked for two years after the last Lok Sabha elections, and inflicted a ‘crushing defeat’ to the BJP. Be it noted that the All India Majli-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen played no role in defeat of even in half a dozen of seats. In no seats did it get even half of votes polled by BSP.

The most spectacular psephologi-cal event in the elections to five state assemblies was the stunning victory of Aam Admi Party in Punjab where it won 92 out of 117 seats fetching 42.08% of votes leaving the ruling Indian National Congress literally into the lurch with 17 seats and less than 23% vote share. AAP victory was envisioned by some seasoned political analysts but none thought it would snatch 92 seats from INC, Sant Akali Dal (Badal) and BJP.

The BJP’s landside victory in Uttarakhand,Goa and Manipur was unexpected. No exit poll arrived at such conclusions. It won 47 out of 70 seats sharing 44.33% in Uttarakhand, 32 out of 60 seats with 33.87% of votes in Manipur and 20 out of 40 seats with 33% of vote share in Goa.

A very well-known IT-scientist and former departmental head in an IIT suspected EVM manipulation in favour of BJP in ‘a very opaque manner, by bugging the firmware of the machines in order to evade the test runs. If the VVPATs are checked by the voter and All VVPATs are counted then it is as good as ballot paper voting’. 

[Contributed]

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Frontier
Vol 54, No. 40, April 3 - 9, 2022