BJP's failure in Uttar Pradesh: A khatakhat analysis of what went wrong for Modi & Yogi

The shehzadas have taken the town by surprise, as the Bharatiya Janata Party is all set to receive a grand drubbing in India's biggest state, Uttar Pradesh in the Lok Sabha elections 2024.

A remarkable turnaround performance of the INDIA bloc of parties in UP led by Samajwadi Party's Akhilesh Yadav and Congress' Rahul Gandhi has likely derailed BJP's trend of clinching a majority on their own, like they did in 2014 and 2019. Instead, they are now hovering around the 240 mark, uncomfortably away from the halfway mark of 272 seats.

BJP won ten seats in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections but managed to increase it to 71 in 2014 and 62 in 2019.


As of around 4 pm, SP was leading on 37 seats while the BJP had 33 seats. From winning five seats in the last election in partnership with the BSP, Akhilesh's party in UP has dealt a bodyblow to the BJP, which had in 2019 won 62 seats on its own.

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What went wrong for Yogi, right for SP

Having won two assembly elections with comfortably majorities, Tuesday's results paint a dim picture of reality for Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

One key element that worked for the 'do ladko ki jodi' in UP, is the PDA perspective. Pichchde (backward classes), Dalits and Alpsankhyak (minorities), coined by Yadav has likely paid SP dividends.

Exit polls had predicted NDA to win over 60 out of the 80 seats in the state, even as the party itself targeted 80 seats. This confidence was on the back of the fulfilment of the Ram Mandir promise, among others. However, the party was trailing even on the Faizabad seat, which houses the temple.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, now in Tihar jail, had claimed that PM Modi would remove Adityanath as the Chief Minister. While the BJP clarified that such a move would not be possible, perhaps some corners of the state were fearful of the Centre growing too strong. The Opposition kept stressing that if the NDA is given a mandate with over 400 seats, they could amend the Constitution and remove reservation. This is perhaps another factor that played against BJP's prospects in the state.

Despite the Indian economy emerging as among the top performers globally in terms of growth rate, rising prices of necessities like gas cylinders and fuel prices likely played spoilsport for the party's prospects in the state. Lack of jobs under the Modi government in the last ten years and the Opposition's promise of 30 lakh jobs was probably succesful in gaining the confidence of voters.

Congress' promise of giving Rs 8,500 per month and Rs 1 lakh ever year to the poor women, repeated by Gandhi in almost all of his speeches struck a chord with the voters.